Regional Faith-based Organisations (FBOs) will meet on 22-23 November 2005 in Georgetown, Guyana at the second Champions for Change Conference to reduce HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination.
Convened by the CARICOM-coordinated Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP), the Conference, under the chairmanship of CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General for Human and Social Development, Dr. Edward Greene, will among other issues, identify challenges relating to HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination; share experiences on the impact of HIV infected and affected members in FBOs; propose solutions for overcoming negative attitudes and reducing stigma and discrimination, and define a role in which FBOs can make contributions to reducing the stigma and discrimination associated with HIV/AIDS.
Religion in its various forms and dimensions, like politics, influences people’s everyday lives and it is widely acknowledged that FBOs are critical partners in the response to the epidemic. Among the attributes that make them suitable is their ability to mobilise particularly at the grass root level because they are respected and listened to. Notwithstanding, FBOS have been ”accused of inaction and of promoting stigmatising and discriminating attitudes based on fear and prejudice”.
Champions for Change II will draw representation from a number of FBOs, including Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Rastafarians, who over the two days will discuss the situation of stigma and discrimination as it exists in their organisations, communities and congregations; undertake pledges to be included in the Plan of Action for future initiatives to address the issue of stigma and come up with strategies for establishing an inter-faith networking mechanism for the exchange of information, advocacy, resource mobilisation, among other interventions.
The Conference also draws representation from other regional bodies such as the Caribbean Regional Network of Persons living with HIV/AIDS (CRN+) and internationally-renown personalities including the Rev Canon Gideon Byamugisha, who will deliver a presentation on Cultural practices, beliefs, the vulnerability of women, children – the challenge; how it has been dealt with in Africa. Rev. Gideon is the first practising priest to break the “silence” still associated with HIV/AIDS, by declaring his HIV status more than a decade ago. The conference will also receive other presentations from a number of organisations, including the Caribbean Conference of Churches (CCC) which has been in active collaboration with PANCAP in convening this conference.
This Conference is a follow-up to the one held in St. Kitts and Nevis almost one year to the day, in which PANCAP in collaboration with the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) assembled a wide cross-section of representatives from government, private sector, civil society, cultural and sporting icons, youth bodies, the media, among others to develop strategies and to forge partnerships for an effective response to the epidemic, in particular the epidemic of stigma and discrimination, which research has shown is one of the major factors driving HIV/AIDS underground and increasing its spread. Currently, the statistics for persons living with HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean stand between 400,000 and 500,000 and the latest modelling projection exercise indicates that, in an optimistic case scenario, this number will increase to 672,000 by the year 2010.
The Conference commences at 9.00 am. with an Opening Ceremony in the Savannah Suite of Le Meridien Pegasus, in which brief remarks will be given by Amb. Lolita Applewhaite CARICOM Deputy Secretary-General, Mr. Gerard Granado, General Secretary of the CCC, H.E. Stephen Hiscock, British High Commissioner to Guyana and Mr. Jaime Nadal, Deputy Representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Hon. Damian Greaves, Minister of Health, Saint Lucia and Chairman of the Planning Committee for the Conference will give welcome remarks, while the Hon. Samuel Hinds, Prime Minister of Guyana will officially open the Conference.
