CNC organises seminar on AIDS

Ho, Dec. 21. GNA - Mr. William Addo, Volta Regional Director of Centre for National Culture (CNC) on Tuesday said culture should be the basis of all programmes aimed at getting people to refrain from habits that exposed them to HIV/AIDS.

He maintained that whatever means that had been identified as the cause of the rapid spread of the disease, "had something to do with our culture and its practices."

Mr. Addo said this at a Regional HIV/AIDS Seminar organised by CNC for its staff on the theme: "Culture and HIV/AIDS- Eliminate Dangerous Cultural Practices".

"We need to evolve a strategy to make appropriate and timely interventions in cultural modes and with cultural tools if we are to achieve change in sexual culture and thereby encourage behavioural change," he stated.

The workshop, which was to sensitise participants drawn from all the CNC district offices in the region, was sponsored by the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC).

Mr. Addo said sexual behaviour is greatly influenced by cultural factors like ethical and religious beliefs, ritual or ceremonial practices and rules of marriage.

He said HIV/AIDS came to meet the valued cultures and practices but was threatening their very existence because people could not marry the rich African cultures with modernity effectively.

Mr. Addo therefore, called on shareholders in the fight against the pandemic to help eliminate the negative cultural practices such as widow inheritance, polygamy and modern practices like Valentine day, which promote the spread of the disease.

"These negative practices must give way to the demands of modern positive technology within the contemporary international cultural system", he said. .