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Bosongo Community Health Outreach Services (BCHOS ), an LWR partner, offers karate classes to young men in the community as a way to divert energy from social tendencies which contribute to the AIDS epidemic. |
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NEWS FROM
LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF
SNAP-SHOTS OF LWR IMPACT ON AIDS IN EAST AFRICA: “WE NOW SEE HOW WE CAN HELP”
“This project has served as a wake up call to us as pastors and all our congregations to be our brothers' keepers. The sick and the orphans need our support and we now see how we can help. We have started giving special offerings and, with your support, we can do much more.” Pastor Godfrey Makumbi of Ndesse Miracle Church in Ndesse, Uganda, after a one-week workshop offered by LWR.
Lutheran World Relief's H.I.V./AIDS program mobilizes African churches and community-based organizations in 23 projects providing prevention, care and support for people living with and affected by H.I.V./AIDS. Measures of the impact in one region, East Africa, as of World AIDS Day 2003 include the following:
- Over 70 congregations actively involved in the fight against stigma and discrimination within their communities.
- 291 persons accessing revolving loan funds for income-generating activities that support persons affected by AIDS .
- 326 H.I.V./AIDS counselors trained and serving the infected and the affected in their communities.
- 2,363 orphans going to primary school, 477 orphans in vocational training, 20 in secondary school.
- More than 160,000 people benefiting from integrated H.I.V./AIDS programs in food security, home-based care, psychosocial support, rights of people living with H.I.V./AIDS, and economic empowerment.
LWR's AIDS projects include other faith groups and other faith-based organizations. One project in western Kenya--where AIDS is especially severe—unites Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, Adventists and Muslims. The inter-church agency, Church World Service, co-funds LWR's interfaith H.I.V./AIDS projects in Kenya. A faith-based NGO, Medical Assistance Programme, works with LWR in Tanzania to provide technical support to churches in the development of H.I.V./AIDS policies and strategic plans. Also, LWR recently took part in a World Council of Churches workshop examining the global, ecumenical response to HIV/AIDS.
For World AIDS Day:
$5 Billion Phone Calls and 31 Reasons for Hope >>
