GENEVA, Oct 20 (AFP) - Four AIDS activists, including a Polish priest and a Malawi woman among the first in her country to disclose she is HIV-positive, were awarded a UN humanitarian prize Friday.
This year's winners of the "Race Against Poverty" prize, two of whom are themselves HIV-positive, have worked to educate people about HIV and fought to end discrimination against those living with the virus.
The United Nations Development Program chose the four laureates from among "those who make a difference in the fight against poverty and its underlying causes," the UN agency stated.
Polish priest Father Arkadiusz Nowak, 34, has fought for 10 years to end the silence about HIV in Poland, giving birth to debate within the country about the rights of people infected with HIV.
He helped open a health care center for drug addicts in Anielin near Warsaw. He is the first Roman Catholic Church official to publicly work on the issue and to defend the rights of a group of drug addicts with HIV.
Marie Bopp Dupont, 25, a journalist in Tahiti with HIV, was distinguished for her work teaching communities in the Pacific islands about the virus.
She has particularly worked to educate the peoples of Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Cook Islands.
Nicaraguan psychologist Rita Arauz has worked intensely during her career to help women. In 1990 she founded Nimehuatzin, the first non-governmental organization in Nicaragua to fight HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. She has done research into the behavior of high-risk individuals and the epidemic's psychological impact.
In 1990, Catherine Phiri, 38, of Malawi, became one of the first women in her nation to publicly announce that she is HIV-positive. The mother of two faced terrible discrimination as a result.
She founded a community-based organization to help give "a voice and a human face" to people living with HIV and AIDS. Phiri confronted the wall of silence which often hides the reality of HIV in Africa.
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