Archbishop

Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Njongonkulu Ndungane has challenged President Thabo Mbeki and government ministers to speak out about HIV/AIDS at every public engagement. Ndungane issued this challenge shortly after prominent health economist Alan Whiteside, addressing clergy at a public lecture on HIV/AIDS, said the church should demand better political leadership in the fight against the disease. Responding to Whiteside, Ndungane said President Thabo Mbeki should tell every minister that whenever you speak, you must speak about HIV/AIDS - just as we've told our clergy they must talk about it from their pulpits. Whiteside, director of the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division at the University of Natal, spoke to about 100 clerics at St Cyprian's Anglican Church in Retreat on the causes and consequences of HIV/AIDS. He said the church, which itself provided leadership to society, should put pressure on political leaders at the most senior levels - the president, ministers and our provincial governments - to tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis. He referred to Uganda, where President Yoweri Museveni curtailed the HIV/AIDS epidemic by speaking about HIV at every opportunity. Whiteside said antiretrovirals were not a panacea, but rather part of the response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The antiretroviral debate had been oversimplified, with the Treatment Action Campaign on one side calling for the drugs and the government balking on the other. The truth was somewhere between the two positions. One of the obstacles to providing the treatment was that some people would rather die of AIDS than come out in the open about their disease. Others were the inadequate health infrastructure in some areas and the development of drug-resistant strains of HIV/AIDS. Problems could arise because South Africa and Botswana could afford to provide antiretrovirals, but other countries in the region could not. What happens if we see medical migrants - people coming here for treatment? Whiteside said. He challenged the church to come up with innovative responses in fighting HIV/AIDS. One possibility was to establish treatment centres at churches where people taking antiretrovirals could be counselled to ensure they took the drugs. (Source: (Source: The Cape Times, 2 September 2003).

One of the largest funded Aids programmes undertaken by a church was announced by Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane on Wednesday. The R222-million programme aimed to reduce the stigma and discrimination surrounding HIV/Aids, he told reporters in Johannesburg. The programme, called Isiseko Sokomoleza (Building the Foundation), will be undertaken by the countries which fall within the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (CPSA). They are South Africa, Angola, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, and the colony of St Helena. The first funding of the project came from USAID for a wellness management programme which is already underway. Driven by the Mothers Union and the Anglican Women's Fellowship, the programme would train 9 0000 women over the next three years to give care and spiritual support to those living with Aids, Ndungane said. Christian Aid with the support from the British government's Department for International Development has granted R45-million to fund the rest of the programme until April 2006. He said the value of the CPSA in terms of human capital had been calculated at R177-million. The archbishop said the programme had a number of aims. They included HIV-specific pastoral care and education for clergy and lay leadership, support for the coordination of HIV/Aids programming and development within each diocese, and Aids-specific leadership development within each diocese and congregation. The project also aimed to expand community and parish-based responses for children orphaned by the pandemic and advance workplace policies to ensure the rights of those infected. Material would be developed for sexual education in the church that was age appropriate and culturally sensitive. Ndungane said that ultimately the church hoped to influence government policy and practice to become more compassionate to those infected with HIV/Aids. The office of the HIV/Aids Communities Ministries and Mission will manage the programme and its books will be audited quarterly. Ndungane said each diocese conforming with accounting and reporting procedures would receive nearly R500 000 over three years. The funds would be allocated for personnel, equipment and programmes. A number of workshops will be held in the coming weeks to finalise the programme. Ultimately each parish and diocese will decide what projects they will carry out. Within the first year we hope to demonstrate to the world and to the people of our parishes and communities that we can live into the mission imperative that 'No one should care alone. No one should die alone. For we are all living with Aids'. (Source: Sapa, Mail and Guardian, 24 April 2003)