World AIDS Day: Call to Leadership
The leadership theme has been chosen by UNAIDS and other partners, including the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, of which Franciscans International is an active member. This theme implies both continuity, as well as a new dynamic for the Franciscan Family’s work across the globe.
Continuity because in many countries, the Franciscan Family is in the front line of the combat against the pandemic HIV and AIDS. The Franciscans work in the areas of : prevention (changing the attitude towards HIV/AIDS, counseling, free testing, familiarizing and sensitizing people to the disease), care for patients (treatment and taking responsibility for the patients, care at home, administering various kinds of medical care, especially palliative), taking charge of children orphaned by AIDS, and in the area of advocacy (fighting discrimination and stigmatization of patients, encouraging effective access to treatment, encouraging states to respect their obligations, particularly with regard to the campaign – Keep the Promise.
A new dynamic because this is a call, an interjection, that takes into account the challenges yet to be met, and asks for a stronger mobilization, a more aggressive engagement, an advocacy more focused on respecting the obligations made by states and the international community as a whole.What we need to do now, is re-enforce the leadership of the Franciscan brothers and sisters who work at the grassroots, at the bedsides of people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS – a pandemic whose growing statistics continue to serve as a stark reminder to the international community’s collective responsibility.
WORRYING FIGURES
At the week-long Leadership Seminar for the Franciscan Family in Southern Africa, held 15-22 September at Lusaka, Zambia; Dr. Catherine Sozi, the Coordinator of UNAIDS Zambia made a compelling presentation that recounted the major relevant issues, figures on new infections in 2006, the number of deaths caused by the pandemic, and the number of people undergoing anti retroviral treatment.
UNAIDS has also produced a global report on the relevant figures and issues concerning the challenges must be met in the fight against the pandemic. The organization has also established country profiles.
