Pastors attend HIV/AIDS leadership seminar in Accra

Accra, Feb. 3, GNA - About 400 Pastors are attending a seminar to equip them with skills to to stamp out HIV/AIDS and to help people living with the pandemic based on Christian principles.

The seminar, which would impart knowledge to the participants to encourage people to abstain from indiscriminate sex as a way of preventing the spread of AIDS is under the sponsorship of the Betty Rush Ford Ministries of the United States.

Speaking to the GNA at the Peace Chapel International at Abeka La-Paz in Accra, Mrs Betty Rush Ford, Founder of the Ministries, said apart from Ghana

the organisation had organised similar programmes in Kenya and Haiti. She said the programme, known as "A Haven of Hope" would move from Accra next week to Calabar, Nigeria and would organise similar ones in Kenya, Uganda, Russia and India this year.

Mrs Rush Ford said the death of her son to AIDS in 1998 greatly influenced the focus of the Ministries, adding that, before going international, it started an AIDS programme known as the "Channels of Love" in Tennessee United States in 1989.

She is the author of the book on AIDS titled, "Mercy Triumphs" published in 2001.

The Reverend Anthony D. Hammond, Senior Pastor of Bible Life Evangelical Church and Co-ordinator of the programme, said there would be three sessions each day of the two-day seminar.

He said apart from the HIV/AIDS leadership seminar, there would be a programme on Human Rights leadership.

Pastor Hammond announced that the four-member team from the United Sates would offer free medical care at the Bible Life Evangelical Church at Mataheko in Accra on Wednesday.

The activities of the Betty Rush Ford Ministries in Ghana were in collaboration with the Bible Life Evangelical Church and the Peace Chapel International.