WCC NEWS: WCC holds HIV treatment adherence workshops in Ivory Coast, Nigeria

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiatives and Advocacy programme will hold workshops in April 2021 on HIV treatment adherence in Ivory Coast and Nigeria. Event promoting HIV self-testing, convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, in connection with the 2018 International AIDS Conference. Here, Chengertai Chifamba from Zimbabwe demonstrates how to use a blood-sample based self-test. Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC 15 April 2021 The workshops, in collaboration with the Alliance of Religious Leaders for the Integral Health and Human Being in Cote d’Ivoire and the Christian Council of Nigeria, will be held in Abidjan on 20-25 April 2021, and Nigeria on 26-30 April 2021. The UNAIDS-PEPFAR consultations will bring together participants from WCC member churches and other faith communities, people living with HIV, adolescents and youth, people with disabilities and others. The central objective of the consultations is to reflect on the impact of exclusive claims to faith healing on HIV treatment adherence. The consultations will examine how the faith communities can address the challenges brought by some faith leaders who discourage people living with HIV from utilizing antiretroviral therapy, thereby compromising their adherence. Approaching the theme from a human dignity framework, the consultations will come up with concrete proposals on how to embrace more holistic and life-giving theologies in the context of HIV. The workshops will equip religious leaders, young people and people living with HIV to utilize the “Treatment Adherence and Faith Healing in the context of HIV and AIDS in Africa Training Manual” (and other relevant home-grown tools) to effectively address stigma, discrimination, sexual and gender-based violence, trauma, life-threatening faith messages and other major obstacles that hinder people, including children, adolescents and young people, from accessing testing, prevention, treatment, care and support. Participants will leave the workshops better equipped with life skills that will help to mobilize their religious communities on HIV treatment adherence.   See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 350 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 550 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC acting general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, from the Orthodox Church in Romania. Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches 150 route de Ferney Geneve 2 1211 Switzerland