"Contentious Issues" - HIVAN/WCRP Religious Leaders and HIV/AIDS Researchers Forum - March 2004

“Questions you always wanted to ask your religious leader about HIV, but were too afraid to ask …? was the focus of a forum co-convened by HIVAN and the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP) at the first session of their 2004 series on 3 March at the Durban Jewish Centre in KwaZulu-Natal.

Lingering death in the canefields

Sister Priscilla Dlamini clutched corner of her billowing black wimple as she pointed down the muddy dirt road that runs past the Holy Cross AIDS Hospice in Gingindlovu and disappears into a vast field of sugar cane swaying in the breeze. "The first house, there, the white one, you see it on the right?" she said, her thick finger tracing the path of the road to a thatched roof barely visible through the cane. "The father and the mother died of AIDS, so did the boy and two girls. That pink house over there, seven died. And there. All eight dead." Her hand swept back toward the horizon to cloud-shrouded mountains. "Everywhere between here and there are empty houses. In the mountains, it is even worse. And where there are people in the houses, there are graves beside them."

HIVAN-WCRP Medical Researchers’ and Faithleaders’ Forum - May 2004: The A – Z of Anti-retroviral Therapy

In May 2004, interfaith leaders, medical researchers and community members in and around Durban joined together for a one-day workshop to share knowledge about anti-retroviral drug treatment and the roll-out of the ARV treatment programme in KZN. Hosted by partners HIVAN and the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP), the gathering focused on how religious groups could help people living with HIV and AIDS, the facts about how ARVs work, and how local health structures are targeting the most vulnerable patients for medication.

New database gives orphans of HIV/AIDS quicker access to grants

A new computerised database is giving a number of orphans of HIV/AIDS in a rural town in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province quick access to government foster care grants.

XV International AIDS Conference - Event: Combating Stigma and Discrimination: The Role of Religious Leaders in Building Inclusive Communities

Organisers: World Conference of Religions for Peace, Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, UNAIDS Monday 12 July 2004 Time: 20.15-22.15 Venue: Room K, Impact Convention Centre Languages: English, French, Spanish, Arabic.

WCRP/HIVAN Forum - Gender and Violence

Programme Director: Pramda Ramasar – lecturer in business and professional ethics (Hindu faith). Panelists: Dr Shakira Cassim – family GP and members of the Islamic Medical Association; Thuli Hlatswayo -Anglican Church, Moeti Lesuthu - PACSA and Sizwe Mchunu - TAI (Targeted AIDS Interventions).

Clinic excels in HIV/AIDS treatment

The Ithemba Clinic at St Mary’s Hospital in Mariannhill has achieved an exceptionally high compliance rate of 99.6% of patients who are on anti-retroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS. This has also been disclosed in a media statement from the South African Catholic Bishop’s Conference.

Preaching a positive sermon on HIV

When the “who’s who? of Africa’s church leadership met in Nairobi last month to consider the role of the church in the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the event was characterised by a transparency on sexuality that only the enormous tragedy that is sweeping the continent could have induced. Widely practised customs such as polygamy, wife-inheritance and cross-generational sex came under scrutiny.

July 2004 HIVAN/WCRP Forum

Questions you’ve always wanted to ask your religious leader about HIV/AIDS but were afraid to ask … was the focus of the July 2004 Forum of Faith-leaders and HIV/AIDS researchers, co-hosted by the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP) and HIVAN, and held at Durban’s Temple David.

WCRP/HIVAN Forum - Building partnerships for HIV/AIDS management in KZN

HIVAN and the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP) hosted the second in its 2004 series of day-long Capacity-building Workshops on 12 August at the Glenmore Pastoral Centre in Durban. The theme of the Workshop was “Building Partnerships for HIV/AIDS Management in KZN?, and was facilitated by HIVAN’s Community Responses research team.