aids

Today was World AIDS Day 2008
For 20 years now, 1st December has been universally recognised as World AIDS day, a time to reflect on the issues facing the 33 million people living with HIV /AIDS today. This year, as well as the established Welsh Civic Service that traditionally marks the day, Calvary Baptist Church played host to the first Christian Aid, HIV/AIDS Day Service. For a long time now, Christian Aid have been working in partnership with local community action groups, particularly in Africa. Much of the work involves supporting those living with HIV/ AIDS, or orphaned by this global pandemic, together with campaigning for better healthcare, anti-discrimination legislation and sex education.

So it was that some members of my church's Global Issues Group met with others from around Cardiff for an informal time of songs, prayer and storytelling that began by reflecting on our own experiences with HIV/AIDS over the last 20 or more years.

It was then a true privilege to listen to Moira Jones from Khayelitsha, a township outside of Cape Town. Moira is director of a group called Wola Nani (www.wolanani.co.za) Wola Nani is Xhosa for ‘we embrace and develop one another’. It was established in 1994 as a non-profit organisation to help bring relief to the communities hardest hit by the HIV crisis. Begun against a background of economic curtailment on welfare spending and a huge increase in the number of HIV and AIDS cases, Wola Nani initiated programmes to help HIV positive people in the local community cope with the emotional and financial strains brought on by the disease. I was staggered at the variety of practical support given by Wola Nani from a small budget funded largely by their own craft income generating initiatives.

Although those gathered for the service were small in number, everyone agreed it had not only been worth the doing, but the evening had been time spent on ‘holy ground.’