ISG 44: Church Communities Confronting HIV and AIDS

By Gideon Byamugisha

A new title in the ISG series to help Christians and churches around the world meet the enormous challenges that HIV/AIDS presents, particularly in African countries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SPCK
• Release date: Apr 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9780281065356

Book preview

First published in Great Britain in 2010

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

36 Causton Street

London SW1P 4ST

www.spckpublishing.co.uk

Copyright © Gideon B. Byamugisha 2010

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978–0–281–06239–3

E-ISBN 978–0–281–06535–6

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Originated by The Manila Typesetting Company

Printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press

Produced on paper from sustainable forests

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Contents

Author and contributors

The SPCK International Study Guides

Acknowledgements

Further reading

Abbreviations

Introduction: Confronting the challenge

No greater gift – Nosipho’s story

Dion Forster

Stop, meditate, pray: on loneliness in crisis

1 The challenge of HIV & AIDS

Types of HIV

Incubation period

Window period

The complications of AIDS

HIV transmission

The growth of HIV & AIDS in developing countries

HIV & AIDS in developed countries

Unsafe environments

Migration and mobility

Wars, conflicts and refugees

Trafficking in human beings

Unsafe commercial sex work

Gender issues

Orphans and other vulnerable children

The stigma

On the margins – Sandy’s story

Jane Barlow

Questions for discussion

Stop, meditate, pray: on stigma and criticism

2 Theology of salvation for the HIV & AIDS challenge

Salvation: after death or before?

Fulfilment through redemption

Sin as love-deficit

Hope for the nations

The stigma of HIV & AIDS and a Christian response

John Joshva Raja

Questions for discussion

Stop, meditate, pray: on compassion

3 How should church communities respond to HIV & AIDS?

How religious beliefs impact on HIV & AIDS

Leadership roles

Beliefs about disease, suffering and wholeness of being

African women and HIV & AIDS

Facts about HIV & AIDS

Ways of transmitting HIV

New knowledge about HIV & AIDS

Attitudes to sex and sexual health

Sex education

Condoms and the Church

Loving and sexually mature congregations

Funerals

Magdalene and a small Christian community

Eunice Karanja Kamaara

Questions for discussion

Stop, meditate, pray: our mercy is not optional

4 With whom should church communities work?

Churches in partnership

Helping churches to develop a strategy to combat HIV & AIDS

Supporting the churches

Encouraging ministers to speak out

Congregational and community action

Mobilizing church members who are HIV-positive or personally affected

Leadership at national level

Leadership at regional and international level

Partnership development

Learning and information management

Advocacy

Theology, HIV & AIDS and street theatre in India – how one theological college was mobilized to confront HIV & AIDS

John Joshva Raja

Questions for discussion

Stop, meditate, pray: on working together

5 Recommendations to governmental and non-governmental organizations

Recommendation 1: Appreciate that there is no marked line between ‘people of faith’ and ‘health-related policy-makers’

Recommendation 2: Appreciate that the religious sector is one, but religious people are many and varied

Recommendation 3: Be compassionate and understanding

Recommendation 4: Recognize that many church leaders are political in vision and mandate

Recommendation 5: Involve religious communities in HIV & AIDS policy-making

Recommendation 6: Address obstacles facing churches’ participation in HIV & AIDS policy-planning

Summary

Marriana and a micro-finance institution

Eunice Karanja Kamaara

Stop, meditate, pray: on recognizing our own faults

6 Recommendations to church leaders and communities

Define your intended outcomes

Expand your knowledge about HIV & AIDS interventions

Become indispensable to the global HIV & AIDS partnership

Establish a reputation for integrity and reliability

Be willing to rise above self-serving goals

Learn the ropes

Perfect the virtues of patience and perseverance

Believe in yourself – your potential, value and contribution

Sipho’s funeral – practical help by the Christian community

Nosmanga Julia Molatji and Caroline Tuckey

Question for discussion

Stop, meditate, pray: hope and attitude

Appendix 1: Order of service for World AIDS Day

Appendix 2: Examples of indicators used in HIV & AIDS programming

Search items

Author and contributors

Author

The Revd Canon Gideon Baguma Byamugisha publicly declared in 1992 that he was living with HIV and became the first practising religious leader in Africa to break the silence masking the fear and social stigma attached to HIV & AIDS.

Canon Gideon, born in 1959, is the eldest of the 14 children of the late lay reader John B. Karakabire and his wife Mary. He obtained an honours degree in education at Makerere University in 1985, went into teaching and soon became deputy head at Kihihi High School. In 1991 he graduated from Bishop Tucker Theological College, Mukono, with a first-class degree in divinity. The same year his first wife, Kellen, died. They had had two children, of whom only one has survived. In 1995 Gideon married Pamela (herself HIV-positive and widowed through HIV & AIDS). Thanks to advances made in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV & AIDS, Pamela and Gideon now have two healthy children, Love and Hope. Gideon and his wife have also taken into their care other children who are orphaned or vulnerable.

Since 1992 Gideon has done pioneering work in combating the widespread ignorance and prejudice about HIV & AIDS. Supported by friends, clergy and bishops, and especially his mentor, Bishop Samuel B. Ssekkadde, and the Revd Sam L. Ruteikara, Gideon has founded the following institutions:

• Archbishop Carey Regional Resource Centre in Uganda to train church leaders and congregations in HIV & AIDS issues;

• the Friends of Canon Gideon Foundation (FOCAGIFO) to sponsor and support orphans and other vulnerable children in vocational and professional studies, health empowerment and leadership skills;

• the African Network of Religious Leaders living with, or personally affected by, HIV & AIDS (ANERELA+). This network helps its members to overcome stigma and to use their experiences as a force for positive change.

Canon Gideon has given numerous lectures and sermons on HIV & AIDS in more than 50 countries around the world, and speeches at many international conferences, notably at the Special Sessions of the United Nations General Assembly on population and development in 1999, and at the Special Sessions on HIV & AIDS in 2001 and 2006. He has also spoken at African Heads-of-State summits, World Bank conferences and at the Parliament of World Religions.

As Goodwill Ambassador on HIV & AIDS for the charity Christian Aid, Canon Gideon works tirelessly to encourage people and leaders worldwide to double their efforts in bringing about a world that is safer, healthier and fairer to all its children, irrespective of their age, gender or location. He seeks to ‘speak truth to power’ prophetically on the world stage, pointing out policies that damage the self-confidence or rights of those affected by HIV & AIDS. Canon Gideon, who was a commissioner on HIV & AIDS issues in the Uganda AIDS Commission from 2001 to 2005, has received many awards for his work on HIV & AIDS. These include one from the Parliament of Uganda itself, and others from World Vision International, Nkumba University, the Stromme Foundation and the Niwano Peace Foundation.

Contributors

Jane Barlow has lived in Thailand since 1990 and has been involved in caring for people living with HIV & AIDS since 1993. She started two home-based care projects in different parts of Thailand working under the AIDS ministry of the national Church. Since 2004, Jane has been based in Bangkok, from where she has continued to give support to home-based care projects on the Burmese border. She is also involved in the counselling of prisoners living with HIV in the prison hospital.

Dion Forster is an ordained minister in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. He is the author of six books and numerous scholarly articles. He serves as a chaplain and consultant to the world’s largest community transformation and prayer movement – Transformation Africa – and the Global Day of Prayer that reaches more than 350 million people from every country in the world. He has worked extensively with church- and community-based HIV & AIDS projects in Southern Africa to raise funds for HIV prevention, care for infected persons and the establishment of AIDS orphanages. He was formerly the Dean of the Seminary of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, John Wesley College. Dion holds a doctorate in science and theology, specializing in the fields of human consciousness and the science of ‘belief ’ in the human brain. He holds a research post at the University of Pretoria. Dion is married to Megan and they live in Cape Town, South Africa, with their two children.

Eunice Karanja Kamaara, Associate Professor/researcher in religion at Moi University and international affiliate of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, USA, holds a D.Phil. in religious studies. Kamaara teaches contemporary Christian ethics, Christian theology in Africa, and research methodology in humanities. Her research interest is multidisciplinary: theological, ethical, socio-anthropological and gender approaches to various challenges to the Church in contemporary Africa. Individually and with others, she has carried out major research projects in the area of gender, HIV & AIDS and human sexuality, presenting her work regularly in local and international forums and contributing to books and journals. She is the author of Gender, Youth Sexuality and HIV/AIDS: A Kenyan Experience (AMECEA Gaba Publications, 2005) and has co-edited two books on the family and the Church in Kenya. Generally, the publications indicate the writer’s conviction that the Church is one of the major institutions with the potential to change the future of Africa, a continent laden with myriad symbiotic problems related to poverty and disease. Kamaara is also a trainer of trainers in gender and development and in sexual health including HIV & AIDS. She has been a consultant for national and international organizations such as the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), the World Bank and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). She is a member of the World Council of Churches working groups on biotechnology and climate change. Kamaara is Presbyterian by birth and upbringing, Roman Catholic by marriage and Catholic by choice. She is married and blessed with two children.

Nosmanga Julia Molatji teaches in the Theological Education by Extension College (TEE College) in South Africa. She has a B.Ed. (Hons) degree in educational management from the University of Potchefstroom. She taught in schools and further education institutions and received recognition for outstanding performance in the teaching profession. At TEE College she coordinates the short courses programme and adult basic education and training course, and she uses her knowledge of five African languages to assist people from different cultural groups. She is married to a Methodist minister and blessed with three children. She is the president of the Women’s Manyano (Organization) in her church and chairperson of the Young Women’s Organization. The most recent project the organization has started is an ‘adopt a home project’ for physically challenged children.

Katy Newell-Jones of Feed the Minds interviewed Gideon Byamugisha and provided further expertise on HIV & AIDS and community responses, and Malcolm Day worked with Gideon Byamugisha on the text.

Revd Dr John Joshva Raja was Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Gospel, Culture and Communication of United Theological College (UTC), Bangalore, between 2000 and 2006. During his time at UTC, he initiated HIV & AIDS awareness programmes among the theological students that influenced many of the churches in India, later establishing a street theatre programme and other audio-visual means of promoting awareness of HIV & AIDs. He also facilitated regional and national training for women, church and non-governmental organizational leaders and representatives to promote awareness and influence church policy, theological courses and government strategies. Joshva holds an M.Sc. in physics, an M.Th. in New Testament, an M.A. in mass communication and a Ph.D. (2000) in Christian communication. He published Facing the Reality of Communication: Culture, Church, and Communication (ISPCK, 2001), and Controversies in Theology and Media (Canterbury Press, 2007). He has edited or co-edited four other books, most recently a text for seminarians (with S. Prabhakar): Introduction to Communication and Media Studies (Senate of Serampore College, 2006). He has edited the Journal for Christian Ministry since 2003, as well as an online mission journal, Rethinking Mission. He has served on the management committee of the Network for Interfaith Concerns on interfaith relations since 2006. Ordained in the Church of South India in 1995, he has served parishes in India, England and Scotland. Presently he is a tutor in global Christianity and world mission for the Selly Oak Centre for Mission Studies, The Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham, UK.

Caroline Tuckey also teaches in the TEE College in South Africa. She has a background of work with children and young people, working in racially mixed teams during the apartheid era and running a unit for children with cerebral palsy children in Baragwaneth Hospital, Soweto. In 1995 she helped to establish a professional childcare college. She has a Master’s degree in theological ethics and is preparing a doctoral thesis on moral formation. She is a member of the Anglican Church and promotes social and environmental issues within it. She has contributed a chapter to a book, Archbishop Tutu: Prophetic Witness in South Africa (Human & Rousseau (PTY) Ltd, 1997), and written articles for the TEE journal.

The SPCK International Study Guides

The International Study Guides