afrol News - November 6, 2002

The historic cooperation between leaders of the country's two principal religions had sprung out of a February 2000 project. It now enters a new phase, which is called "Reach Out, Show Compassion", and focuses mainly on gaining public support and compassion for those infected with HIV/AIDS.

The new program is intended to "increase the number of religious organisations and congregations and humanitarian groups engaged in HIV/AIDS issues," says a spokesman for one of the project's main coordinators, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Centre for Communication Programs (CCP).

The programme includes training programs for 900 clergy, Imams, and other religious leaders, which is to be held throughout Ghana to help set up "compassion programs." According to CCP, "television and radio spots will also support a compassionate response by quoting directly from the Bible or Koran where compassionate behaviour is demonstrated. In Ghana today, an estimate of a half-million people carry the HIV virus."

Stop AIDS, Love Life is a joint effort of the Ghanaian ministries of Information and of Health, the Ghana Social Marketing Foundation, and the CCP, with support from the US agency USAID. The Christian Council of Ghana is to coordinate the religious groups in implementing the "Reach Out, Show Compassion" campaign.

- People living with HIV/AIDS need more than medical support, Emmanuel Fiagbey, the programs' country representative in Ghana, informed today. "They need emotional and spiritual support, they need to live in caring communities," he adds.

This was to "slow the spread of HIV because people will not be so likely to hide their status if they can expect more compassion," Mr Fiagbey holds. He further emphasises how reducing the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS was "a critical element" of any strategic communication program.

AIDS is a growing problem in Ghana, which so far has been spared from epidemic HIV infection numbers. Over the last years, however, numbers are rapidly growing and now, almost 4 percent of the country's population is reported to be HIV-infected.

Concerns are raised that, if the Ghanaian government doesn't take immediate action, numbers could soon soar to those of the neighbour countries C|te d'Ivoire (11 percent) and Togo (6.5 percent). The Kufuor government has been seen taking initiatives to several campaigns and programmes against AIDS over the last months.

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