health, healing and wholeness
facilitating community responses to HIV/AIDS
resources / education / work in africa / other regions
health, healing and wholeness facilitating community responses to HIV/AIDS |
| Faith-based groups at 16th International AIDS Conference, 13-18 August 2006, Toronto, Canada
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The WCC health desk has been active in the area of HIV/AIDS since the 1980s. Its main emphasis then and during the 1990s was the development and distribution of educational and study materials. The desk also supported innovative community initiatives in countering HIV/AIDS, provided technical assistance to member churches in the development of strategies for combatting HIV/AIDS in the community, and participated in and offered networking possibilities at national and international forums on HIV/AIDS.
Much has been done by churches and related organizations in the field of HIV & AIDS. But much more needs to be done. A key gap is the lack of visibility and contribution from people living with HIV & AIDS to the life of the church. They are mostly silent and marginalized. But how can we overcome this epidemic without the creative contributions of the positive community? Churches and related organizations are one of the largest employers in the world, both in the formal and voluntary sectors. But how many of our churches' organizations have a work policy that ensures "just" engagement of people living HIV & AIDS? How do churches and related organizations deal with networks of people living with HIV & AIDS? Fortunately, we are not operating in a vacuum, and there are some helpful and successful examples. WCC has prepared a series of three documents, The framework for engagement, which consists of: 1. Towards a Policy on HIV/AIDS in the Workplace - Working Document : pdf format / html format This workplace policy has been developed according to the guidelines of the International Labour Organization, to assist churches to take the lead and embrace and accept people living with HIV and AIDS both within and outside churches. This a template for churches and related organizations to adopt and to customize to their needs without compromising the main principles, to bring about policy change within ones own workplace. Nothing could more effectively deal with stigma and discrimination than church leaders and congregation members living openly with their HIV status in the full knowledge that they are both accepted and supported by their church. This workplace policy is in keeping with the on-going work of the WCC and with the statement adopted by the WCC Central Committee on the basis of the WCC Consultative Group on AIDS Study Process, September 1996. 2. Guidelines on Partnerships between Churches and People Living with HIV/AIDS Organisations : pdf format / html format To promote the greater participation of people living with HIV, churches and communities need to go beyond dealing with individuals. Partnerships with networks of people living are an essential part of the process of change. These guidelines aim to foster partnerships so that both the churches and partnering organizations can nurture and sustain their collaboration. The focus is on the challenges and ways forward in creating partnerships between churches and PLWHA organizations, while giving a broader perspective on partnerships generally. These guidelines are to help churches to reach out to others skilfully and in a planned way by highlighting the reasons for forming partnerships and some of the challenges, and by suggesing some ways forward, including by providing examples of existing partnerships and initiatives. 3. Working with People Living with HIV/AIDS Organisations - Background Document : pdf format / html format This document has been written to accompany the above document. Whereas the partnership document explores the question of why churches should work with People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) organizations and networks, this document has a focus on how churches may work with PLWHA organizations and networks. For example: what issues do you need to think about? what are the needs of PLWHA? how should you interact PLWHA? It is hoped that these practical suggestions will assist in helping make partnerships functional and effective. These documents have been developed in cooperation with the Global Network of People living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+), African Network of Religious Leaders living with or personally affected by HIV and AIDS (ANERELA+) and The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) We have already field-tested these resources, and many organizations have been using them to good effect. It is recommended that you make use of them, and ensure that your church and organizations have functioning policies in place, to ensure meaningful and greater participation of people living with HIV & AIDS in the life of the church. A first, basic information, booklet for health workers entitled What is AIDS? was published in 1987. Aware of the need for pastoral care and counselling, the desk then organized three regional and an international consultations to determine an ecumenical response to the problem. A report on the latter consultation, entitled "AIDS and the Church as a Healing Community", was sent to WCC member churches for consideration and action, and in 1990, a group of counsellors from five continents assisted by World Health Organization (WHO) material and staff, produced a guidebook entitled A Guide to HIV/AIDS Pastoral Counselling Love in a Time of AIDS. In 1996, Women, Health and the Challenge of HIV, by Gillian Paterson came out in the WCC RISK series. More recently, a study document, Facing AIDS - The Challenge, the Churches' Response, and an accompanying guide: Facing AIDS - Guidelines: Education in the Context of Vulnerability HIV/AIDS (1997), was developed, adapted and distributed through workshops, testing and use at the community level in congregations, lay leadership and clergy. The document and guide have since been adapted and used in 26 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia, and a pilot training programme in Zimbabwe, and India (June 1999 to May 2000) trained 2479 people. In Latin America, the project was coordinated through CLAI, the Latin American Council of Churches, which printed and distributed the educational materials and conducted a series of work shops. |
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Most ministers have had no formal training on HIV/AIDS facts, counselling, community organizing, or networking with other churches, non-governmental organizations and government. Similarly, most theological institutions are led by people who are unprepared to teach, and prepare ministers to teach, about HIV/AIDS. Most theological institutions have no core courses on HIV/AIDS and the church ministry, nor have they integrated such a focus into their other courses.
In association with MAP International and UNAIDS, the WCC health desk together with the education desk therefore worked with African theological institutions to encourage them to incorporate key aspects of HIV/AIDS training in their curricula. Biblically-based and secular resource materials were reviewed at a meeting of heads of African theological institutions in Nairobi in June 2000. The meeting began work on an appropriate curriculum, and discussed how this might be disseminated across Africa. "HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is a plague of genocidal proportions. No other calamity since the slave trade has depopulated Africa as AIDS has... The economic social and spiritual consequences cannot be over-emphasized. The churches in Africa consider HIV/AIDS to constitute the biggest challenge to their mission and calling of promoting life with dignity in sustainable communities." A major new ecumenical HIV/AIDS initiative, concentrated on southern, western, eastern and central Africa, has been launched by the WCC: the Ecumenical HIV/AIDS Initiative in Africa (EHAIA) Apart from the focus on Africa, the WCC health desk has been working with regional ecumenical organizations and in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and in Eastern Europe to bring the issue of HIV/AIDS to the forefront of community attention in those regions. The Caribbean Conference of Churches (CCC) is working with the WCC on the issue of sexuality and how it is addressed by theology. CLAI has been facilitated to conduct a series of workshops targeting church leadership and opinion leaders in Central and South America. In Asia and in Eastern Europe, innovative initiatives addressing sex education, and HIV/AIDS prevention and education in difficult circumstances, among vulnerable populations and in conflict regions, are going forward. The health desk supported a conference on HIV/AIDS being organized by the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) in Thailand in November.
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