The Catholic Church has embarked on a campaign to link over 9 000 people living with HIV AIDS on the Copperbelt to organisations that would provide them with free Antiretral Viral Drugs (ART).
Catholic Diocese of Ndola Integrated HIV AIDS Programme Officer Gabriel Zulu said
the Catholic Church on the Copperbelt was currently looking after 12 000 people
infected with HIV AIDS, 3 500 of whom were on ART.
Mr. Zulu said the organisation wants to link as many HIV AIDS infected people to ART
to ensure that even the poor who could not access the life pro-longing drugs
obtained free HIV AIDS drugs.ÂÂ
Mr. Zulu said this at the Copperbelt Health Education Project (CHEP) in Kitwe today
during the official launch the 2007-2009 National Volunteering Partnership and
Strategic Plan for CHEP and the Catholic Diocese of Ndola.
He said the Church had over 20 000 Orphans due to HIV AIDS some of whom were HIV AIDS infected and needed a lot of help.
Mr. Zulu said the Church was running integrated HIV AIDS Programmes in Ndola, Kitwe, Luanshya, Mufurila and Chingola on the Copperbelt.
He added that the number of clients that the Church was looking after in its HIV
AIDS Centres on the Copperbelt was huge compared to the number of trained medical
staff needed to administer medical care to those that were infected.
Mr. Zulu said the Church had since trained over 745 health community workers to
address the impact of the HIV AIDS pandemic through established community structures that were providing free care and support to those living with the disease at
community level.
He said the Catholic Diocese wanted to build a community system to harness,
strengthen and build sustainable HIV AIDS Community Care support Programme which was fully based on volunteerism.
He said there was need for people to adopt the spirit of volunteerism if the impact
of the HIV AIDS pandemic was to be reduced at community level.
And speaking earlier, Kitwe district Commissioner Macdonald Mtine said Government
attaches great importance to Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that play a
pivotal role in mitigating the impact of HIV AIDS at Community Level.
Mr. Mtine said Government was aware of the numerous problems people were facing in
the Fight against HIV AIDS due to inadequate trained health staff hence the need to
train people at community level to administer care and support to people living with
the disease.
He said there was need to strengthen and empower structures at community level with
adequate skills to ensure that they effectively dealt with challenges arising from
the impact of the pandemic at community level.
And CHEP Executive Director Alick Nyirenda commended VSO Zambia for supporting the Catholic Church and his organisation with resources and skill to promote
volunteerism in Zambia to help mitigate the impact of the disease at community
level.
Mr. Nyirenda said the two institutions have entered into an agreement with VSO
Zambia to promote volunteerism at community level as a way of enhancing service
delivery.
Well done for the ART drugs! But i encourage Mr Nyirenda to understand the philosophy behind maslow’s heirachy of needs? does he expect people to volunteer with an empty stomach? good luck Mr Executive Director!