The Role of Faith-Based Organizations in HIV Prevention and Care in Central America

The Role of Faith-Based Organizations in HIV Prevention and Care in Central America
Author: Kathryn Pitkin Derose
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 123
Release: 2010-05-28
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0833049844

Describes the involvement of churches and other faith-based organizations (FBOs) in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. The authors describe the range of FBO activities and discuss the advantages and challenges to such involvement and possible ways that FBOs can enhance their efforts, both independently and in collaboration with other organizations, such as government ministries of health.

Religion and AIDS Treatment in Africa

Religion and AIDS Treatment in Africa
Author: Hansjörg Dilger
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2016-04-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 131706819X

This book critically interrogates emerging interconnections between religion and biomedicine in Africa in the era of antiretroviral treatment for AIDS. Highlighting the complex relationships between religious ideologies, practices and organizations on the one hand, and biomedical treatment programmes and the scientific languages and public health institutions that sustain them on the other, this anthology charts largely uncovered terrain in the social science study of the Aids epidemic. Spanning different regions of Africa, the authors offer unique access to issues at the interface of religion and medical humanitarianism and the manifold therapeutic traditions, religious practices and moralities as they co-evolve in situations of AIDS treatment. This book also sheds new light on how religious spaces are formed in response to the dilemmas people face with the introduction of life-prolonging treatment programmes.

A Faith-based Response to HIV in Southern Africa

A Faith-based Response to HIV in Southern Africa
Author: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.
Publisher: World Health Organization
Total Pages: 82
Release: 2006
Genre: Medical
ISBN:

While there is a general acknowledgement within the church itself that the Church was initially slow to respond to the magnitude of the problem of HIV and AIDS, during the recent past, as the effects of HIV and AIDS within the congregations and communities of the church have become progressively more evident, the Catholic Church has emerged as an increasingly central role-player in a range of initiatives to combat the pandemic. This publication describes the work of the 'Choose to Care' initiative and the way it has been successfully scaled-up through the diocesan and parish network so that programmes are formed by local needs but work with common guidelines and can draw on central support.

Journeys of Faith

Journeys of Faith
Author: Gideon Byamugisha
Publisher:
Total Pages: 124
Release: 2002
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

Looks at how churches in Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa challenge public and official denial of HIV and AIDS; confront stigma, discrimination and judgementalism; educate communities about HIV/AIDS and sexual health; support orphans; campaign for political action; and, provide social support, counselling and health care.

Parallel Discourses

Parallel Discourses
Author: Kipton E. Jensen
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2012-01-24
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1443837253

Animated by the belief that public health programs in Botswana, or other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, would be more effective if those who designed and implemented them possessed a better understanding of existing ethno-medical as well as religious beliefs and cultural practices, Parallel Discourses provides a revised topology of religious identity in Botswana and then shows why it is important to disaggregate or otherwise distinguish between diverse faith-based communities – from traditional African religions and African Independent Churches to mainline Christian denominations and Muslim communities – when designing or implementing faith-based HIV prevention programs. It also describes the identity politics at work within various faith communities as well as between the faith sector and public health officials. And while it may be true that there have existed parallel if not competing discourses on HIV and AIDS in Botswana, between the public health sector and the faith sector or between traditional healers and allopathic physicians, each with their own paradigms of authority and evidence, these strands of discourse are, as suggested throughout this book, amenable to a dialogical rapprochement. Interweaving parallel discourses on HIV and AIDS is itself instrumental to the implementation of increasingly effective HIV prevention programs, enhanced HIV diagnostic capacities and better care for PLWHA (People Living with HIV and AIDS). Though these essays focus on the many obstacles to collaboration between faith communities and the public health sector in Botswana, they also suggest common ground for increasingly collaborative and effective faith-based HIV prevention interventions.