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African Anglicans to improve pastoral care for people with AIDS
By Nalisha Kalideen. The Star, 24 April 2003. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd
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Anglican churches from seven Southern African countries have united in an attempt to reduce the stigma and prejudice surrounding AIDS. Cape Town Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane announced (in April 2003) that churches from South Africa, Angola, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique and St Helena would be involved in the programme.
He said a R45-million grant awarded to the Anglican Church by Christian Aid, with support from the British government?’s Department for International Development (DFID), would be used over the next three years to fund the Isiseko Sokomoleza "Building the Foundation" programme. The money would be used to "build a base of informed leadership" throughout the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (CPSA).
The 23 dioceses of the CPSA will receive nearly R500 000 over three years, to be allocated for personnel, equipment and programmes. The programme, which is developed largely by parishioners, is aimed at implementing HIV-specific pastoral care and education for clergy and lay leadership, and to support the co-ordination of HIV/AIDS programming and development within each diocese.
The programme also aims to have AIDS-specific leadership development within each diocese and congregation, to expand care of orphaned children and to develop material for sex education in the church. Ndungane said it was important to reduce the intolerance people had towards AIDS. "Until and unless we achieve this, people will not opt for voluntary counselling and testing. Too often the church has chosen condemnation and judgment, rather than mercy and compassion," Ndungane said.
The Archbishop also warned that as long as the church allowed stigma to dominate the way others treated and responded to people living with HIV/AIDS, infected people would not seek help until it was too late. "Those who don?’t know their status will continue to infect others. Those who do know their status will be too frightened to share this with the very people who should be giving them emotional and practical support."
Ndungane said the other countries of the CPSA had prioritised HIV/AIDS. However, South Africa was not effective in its delivery. "South Africa has a good policy and makes good pronouncements, but there are delivery problems, and that sometimes translates into a lack of caring." He also said the fact that the government had not signed an agreement with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria made it seem uncaring.
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