• 2004-2005
• October 2003
• June 2003
• January-March 2003
• December 2002

2004-2005

Africa Field Staff Confer on HIV/AIDS Work

The WMD’s International Health Ministries Office hosted a three-day meeting in September with PC(USA) personnel working with HIV/AIDS programs, to develop a focused strategy for work in Africa. The three regional HIV/AIDS consultants in Africa, Caryl Weinberg (by telelphone), Janet Guyer and Dorothy Hanson, along with the two regional health consultants for Africa, Frank Dimmock and Larry Sthreshley, met with the WMD HIV/AIDS Core Team in Louisville. The objectives of the meetings included defining the scope of HIV/AIDS activities and developing work plans to help staff work more intentionally and effectively with our church partners

• Worldwide, there are now 17 million women and 18.7 million men between the ages of 15 and 49 living with HIV/AIDS, mostly in developing countries.
• Young women now make up more than 60 percent of those 15-24 years old who are HIV/AIDS positive. Globally, young women are 1.6 times more likely to be living with HIV/AIDS than young men.
• Sub-Saharan Africa is the region most disastrously affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic — with 23 million adults now infected, 57 percent of them women. Young women aged 15-24 are three times more likely to be infected than young men.
• 77 percent of all HIV positive women live in sub-Saharan Africa.
  [Read more]—Presbyterian Washington Office first quarterly report, 2005

World AIDS Day

The statistics are shocking and the stories are heart wrenching, yet numbers and words alone cannot adequately express the wide-ranging and profound effects the AIDS pandemic is causing in the lives of children around the world. By the end of 1999, AIDS had created 13.2 million orphans-children under fifteen years who have lost their mothers or both parents. Ninety-five percent of these orphans live in sub-Saharan Africa. UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, estimates that by 2010 there may be 42 million orphans-the number of children in the Unites States living east of the Mississippi River! Despite such staggering statistics, significant progress is being made in the struggle against AIDS. Churches are banding together to break the silence, challenge behavior, and provide basic care to those in need. [Read More]

HIV/AIDS: A Global and Local Epidemic

Since 1981, more than 20 million people have died of AIDS. It is estimated that 38 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS (50 percent women). In 2003, nearly five million people became newly infected with HIV, the greatest number in any one year since the epidemic began.

In its 2004 report, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) noted:

"AIDS is an extraordinary kind of crisis; it is both an emergency and a long-term development issue. [Read more]

June 30, 2005 UN, NGOs told faith-based organizations crucial in AIDS fight    

June 30, 2005  PDA Situation Report—Congo
Food Security and Nutrition Rehabilitation of Malnourished and AIDS Orphaned Children of Kinshasa

June 23, 2005  Activists say India making false AIDS claims
Church workers object to government claim that HIV rate is declining

May 16, 2005  AIDS stigma kills, religious leaders are told
HIV-positive priest rues churches’ ‘absolute fixation with sex’

Justice and Peace Links (The electronic newsletter of the Presbyterian Women Justice and Peace Committee)
2005, Issue 4: HIV/AIDS, A Global Challenge

April 28, 2005  Pope’s election revives AIDS/condom debate 
Few expect relaxation of Catholic church’s ban

January 25, 2005   African churches not ‘winning the war’ on AIDS, leaders told

January  8, 2005 The orphans
About 1.1 million children in South Africa either have HIV/AIDs or have lost parents to the scourge.
London Free Press

2005 The Ryan White Care Act
PC(USA) Washington Office

Outlook 2005: Enhancing Africa's Visibility Key to Budget Challenges on Aid, Debt Relief and HIV/AIDS
PC(USA) Washington Office

September2004  Letter from Susanne Carter and Ken Jones in South Africa

2004 Commissioners assembling AIDS-care kits
‘When Presbyterians hear of needs, Presbyterians fill needs’

October 2003

African leaders strengthen church response to AIDS

Helping our church partners in Africa respond to the tragic toll of HIV/AIDS in their communities continues to be a top priority for International Health Ministries. This commitment is demonstrated through the facilitation of a major AIDS workshop in Malawi fall 2003, and in the planning for a future meeting in 2004 of African church leaders.

Senior leaders of PC(USA) partner churches in Africa will be invited to attend a four-day meeting to discuss their ministries and share ideas around a range of AIDS-related topics. The agenda is expected to address issues that are critical for the development of an effective HIV/AIDS ministry, including:

The workshop was hosted by the Church of Central Africa-Presbyterian, and facilitated by Janet Guyer, PC(USA) AIDS Consultant for South and East Africa, who coordinated the activities, and by Caryl Weinberg, PC(USA) AIDS consultant for West and Central Africa, who graciously and tirelessly provided French-English translation.

Training activities in project planning, monitoring and evaluation were provided by consultants in Africa for the United States AID & International Development agency, USAID.

Participants shared their experiences with AIDS projects in their home communities, and exchanged ideas and lessons learned. Participants represented Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Participants from IHM were AIDS Project Manager Dorothy Hanson and then-IHM Coordinator Dr. Dorothy Brewster-Lee. Dorothy Brewster-Lee challenged the group to actively seek support and funding for their HIV/AIDS projects, using skills gained at the conference.

The meeting for church leaders will be a vital second step in strengthening the capacity of our African partners to help their congregations and their communities. Assistance is needed to make this meeting happen.

ECO 862706 - AIDS Crisis Overseas

June 2003

The Africa Resolution, passed at the 215th General Assembly (2003), Item 11-03, E. 3. Health Ministries Recommendations,
f. That the PC(USA) ask members and congregations to engage in hands-on mission projects that provide care for people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa. This can be done by each congregation or a cluster of congregations preparing one AIDS home-based care kit (as being sponsored by the Worldwide Ministries Division, International Health Ministries area) for use by PC(USA) and partner church hospitals and home care programs in Africa.

Entire text of the Africa Resolution:
To view the follow text, click the link at the end of this sentence. Once you go to the page, type in "Africa Resolution" in the search box and you will be able to find the entire text of the Africa Resolution. Go!

National Black Presbyterian Caucus visits the Church or Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) in Malawi on June 6 - 13, 2003. They Present the first AIDS Home — Based Care Box. (Read More)

Also in the news, from General Assembly in Denver, CO:
General Assembly News article on 5/30/03, “Commissioners assembling AIDS-care kits”.

IHM/MBF breakfast story by John Filiatreau

WMD breakfast story on Human Rights

Presbyterian AIDS Network has a new Web site! Click Here.

Ghana — “Battling AIDS with trust” woman by woman, inroads are being made to stem the HIV/AIDS pandemic. (Read More)

Lesotho — a south African country where AIDS is robbing villages of adults – the Franklins write:

In previous letters we have mentioned a bit about the pervasive HIV/AIDS problem in Lesotho, and in southern Africa in general (published rates of infection in the range of 30-40 percent for Lesotho). A very poignant illustration of the scope of the problem was told to us this week by a friend who is a pilot with MAF. One mountain village we have been to has a total population of 200, only 14 of whom are adults. This is the kind of situation you would imagine for a country in a war situation. But here, the killer is AIDS, probably exacerbated by poor nutrition. This staggering reality is one that will likely be faced by more and more communities in the coming years. It raises many questions, such as how government and churches can assist and support child-headed households. Read Franklin’s most recent letter here.

Madagascar — an African island, miraculously survived through a crisis and now facing the challenges of a new government, poverty, flooding, famine and the AIDS crisis. Read the March letter from Mission co-workers, Dan and Elizabeth Turk .

Malawi — “Anti-retro viral Drugs and Africa” Sue Makin, MD shares her evaluation of the reality of implementing Bono’s call, “medicines for Africa”. I am working as a Presbyterian missionary doctor in Malawi, a poor country in southern Africa where the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is quoted, by the Malawi Ministry of Health, to be 10% in rural areas and 25% in urban areas. Malawi is slated to receive up to $196,138,500.00 over the next five years from the Global Fund against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. As the Ministry of Health is able to account for the planning and execution of its program against HIV/AIDS, these funds will be released in a staged, yearly fashion. (Read More)

Good News, USAID issued an Action Cable (selected items only)
1) placing top priority on the President’s initiative to decrease mother to child transmission,
2) “where there are generalized epidemics, a fully balanced approach to the ABC’s – Abstinence, Being Faithful, and Condoms – should be implemented.”
3) And “Faith-based and community organizations should be engaged in USAID’s fight against HIV/AIDS. (12/12/02 the President issued Executive Orders 13279 and 13280 to enhance the participation of faith-based and community organizations in US Government funded programs.)
This appears to be a step toward greater funding for Faith-Based organizations, frequently restricted from receiving funds in the past.

In March AIDS activists grew concerned when Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, who co-sponsored a bill in 2002 that called for significant increases in the US financial commitment to fight the pandemic, abandoned his legislation in favor of a much weaker White House proposal.

In February it was learned that President Bush himself was talking about the Uganda or ABC model as the roadmap for the prevention part of the $15 billion pledged for AIDS in his State of the Union speech in January.

December, 2002
HIV Vaccine Worldwide AIDS Day on December 1, 2002 came and went with barely any notice of the fact that a kind of vaccine against HIV has been researched, tested and is available to save countless lives in Africa. (Read More)

Worldwide AIDS Day 2002

For facts and figures on the global AIDS crisis, go to www.unaids.org.

Seminar

Facts and statistics on the global AIDS crisis, go to www.unaids.org
At the bottom of that page, HIV/AIDS Information can be accessed, including by country or by subject.