Africa HIV/AIDS Faith Initiative

This project seeks to involve Christian and Muslim religious leaders in raising awareness, changing behaviour, and carrying out advocacy on behalf of PLWA. Inter-religious cooperation has been created, in part, through the joining together of religious leaders of different backgrounds in entertaining actions. The religious leaders sing a freedom song, sung widely across Africa by HIV/AIDS activists and others committed to the struggle against HIV/AIDS. The song is led by its composer, the Rev. Evatt Mugarura, a veteran Ugandan HIV/AIDS activist and director of HIV/AIDS Faith Initiative.

Capacity building in the form of a multi-faceted training programme has also been a central strategy. For example, in Cote d' Ivoire, the Balm In Gilead brought together the Catholic, Methodist, and Pentecostal leadership; this exchange resulted in the formation of a new NGO that coordinates HIV/AIDS services within the Christian community. In Nigeria, the project forged a dialogue among the leadership of the Christian and Muslim governing bodies that led to the establishment of the Interfaith HIV/AIDS Coalition of Nigeria. Nine national coordinating offices with staff and HIV/AIDS advisory boards have been created within the headquarters of all the partnering faith institutions; this reflects organisers' respect for the skills and knowledge of faith communities and the building of capacity and infrastructure to develop a sustainable HIV/AIDS service-delivery system. Following additional training, the 9 national offices developed their own strategic plans and have conducted a myriad of trainings throughout their networks, apparently reaching more than 1 million people, including bishops, pastors, Imams, women, men and youth.

HIV/AIDS.

An excerpt from the Global Health Council website follows:

”The initiative's impact is seen in the individual and collective responses to the experience. Following a training of religious leaders, a pentecostal pastor stood up and said, 'I used to get up on Sunday and say 'people who have HIV/AIDS have sinned.' Now, I have come through this training understanding the science of HIV/AIDS and realise i was wrong. I'm going back to my community to change that.' The pastor returned to his congregation where he started preaching compassion and grace. To his amazement, more than 38 HIV-positive parishioners in his church disclosed their status to him the Sunday morning after his sermon.

Another significant impact has been the bridging of faiths and cultures in all five countries. In Kenya, the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, the Anglican Church of Kenya and the Pentecostal Churches of Eastlands, a low socioeconomic community outside Nairobi, have teamed up to reach bishops, pastors, men, women, youth, children and people infected with HIV/AIDS through education and service initiatives. In Tanzania, the national staffs of the Episcopal, Christian and Muslim HIV/AIDS offices meet monthly to exchange ideas and plan together for the effective development, implementation and coordination of HIV education and service interventions.

But it is in Nigeria, with its well-documented history of religious conflict and recent violence, where the partnering of Christians and Muslims is most remarkable. Observing the establishment of separate offices in each of the four other countries, Nigeria's religious leadership said 'it won't work here,' and charged The Balm In Gilead to set up the Interfaith HIV/AIDS Coalition of Nigeria. Christian and Muslim clerics going out on the street together can draw curious crowds, and 'people will come into the office just to see us working together,' said one reverend.

Nigerian faith institutions involved in this historical decision included the Episcopal Conference of Nigeria, Christian Association of Nigeria, the Christian Health Association of Nigeria and the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs. This interfaith approach in Nigeria is being seen as a model that can be replicated by other countries. The Kenyan Muslim leaders have already requested that it be presented as a best practice model and replicated in other parts of the continent."