AIDS orphans crisis
JOHANNESBURG - Welfare organisations are battling to cope with the increasing number of AIDS orphans referred to them for assistance. Since the beginning of the year, more than 1,600 orphans have been registered for care at the Boksburg Child and Family Welfare Society and the St Francis Care Centre’s Rainbow Cottage alone. More than 60 new cases are referred to the society monthly and, according to Asna Banha, social services manager, charity organisations cannot cope with the continuing influx of orphaned children.
The Citizen, March 4, 2007

Workplace HIV discrimination must end - World Bank
NAIROBI - The World Bank said on Friday it would push to end HIV discrimination in the workplace, where multi-national companies have traditionally applied lower standards to their African employees. World Bank delegates from 27 countries spent five days in the Kenyan capital discussing discrimination against people living with the virus and putting HIV awareness at the forefront of their workplace policies.
Reuters South Africa, March 2, 2007

Majority of South Africans with HIV have drug resistant TB
Researchers at a conference in Los Angeles have said that as many as 85% of HIV-positive South Africans are also infected with an extensively drug-resistant form of tuberculosis (TB), Extensive Drug Resistant TB (XDR-TB). The researchers suggest that XDR-TB is continuing to increase because of globally widespread flaws in the treatment of TB. According to Karin Weyer of South Africa’s Medical Research Council, cases of XDR-TB have been found in 40 hospitals in South Africa, as well as in every province in the country, adding up to a total of around 600 cases.
News-Medical.Net, February 27, 2007

Africa shifts to ‘whole village’ approach for orphans
BEIRA, MOZAMBIQUE - The war was almost over when 4-year-old Jose Castello Valentima showed up at the orphanage a few miles outside of this port city. It was 1991. He knew his father had died. He hoped that someone would soon find his mother. Mr Valentima spent the next 14 years at the orphanage run by the Association for the Children of Mozambique (ASEM). “I learned so many things,” he says of the orphanage. “We were always studying, they were always teaching us.” He pauses. “But in the family you get the best education.” Valentima is just one of millions of children in southern Africa who have lost parents to war, AIDS, and hunger. But he might be one of the last to spend his entire childhood in an orphanage.
The Christian Science Monitor, March 1, 2007

Faces of sickness, poverty are reality
On an average day, I hardly notice that I’m living in a place where forty per cent of the population has HIV or AIDS. Sure, I see people dressed for funerals nearly every time I drive through the countryside, but people don't like to talk about the disease. Among black people, the stigma of AIDS scares people from even naming “the three letters.” And for some white people, life goes on in much the same way as it would for middle class Americans – HIV hangs in the distance like a bad fairy tale. But every now and then the reality of sickness here hits us.
The North Western, February 18, 2007

Caritas Internationalis response to HIV-AIDS
Caritas Internationalis (CI) is a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service organisations working to build a better world, especially for the poor and oppressed, in over 200 countries and territories. This section of the CI website outlines the Caritas vision and response to HIV and AIDS. The site provides links to: documents from the Vatican, various bishops’ conferences and individual bishops; training manuals and useful resources; ecumenical and interfaith networking initiatives; as well as co-operative efforts between Caritas, UNAIDS and other international agencies.

www.caritas.org/

Tomorrow’s Promise
A new 35 minute documentary from Caritas Australia, brings its audience face to face with the AIDS pandemic in South Africa and Papua New Guinea. The film goes beneath the surface of the pandemic and reveals its complex layers. Teenagers talk about the culture of silence. A mother of five talks about discovering she is HIV positive. And a dark secret is exposed: women are dying in greater numbers than men. A culture of abuse has put them at risk. The prevention, care and treatment strategies of Caritas Australia, its partners and the local Catholic Church networks are featured throughout this documentary.

Email melissam@caritas.org.au at Caritas Australia for a copy of Tomorrow’s Promise (in DVD format).

Take my hand
God of justice,
God of the widow and the orphan,
Take my hand and lead me in your ways.
God of compassion,
Loving liberator and gentle healer,
Take my hand and lead me in your ways.
Give me the courage to say
To the lonely child
To the weary widow,
“Come my brother, my sister, take my hand, let us walk together in hope.”
© Jo Boyce / CJM music/ CAFOD

“The drama of AIDS threatens not just some nations or societies, but the whole of humanity. It knows no frontiers of geography, race, age or social condition… (calling) for a supreme effort of international co-operation on the part of government, the world medical and scientific community and all those who exercise influence in developing a sense of more responsibility in society.”
Pope John Paul II, Visit to Tanzania, 1990

PLEASE NOTE: LINKS TO EXTERNAL WEBSITES ARE NOT NECESSARILY ENDORSED BY CARITAS AUSTRALIA.