AIDS Committee supports orphanage, HIV/AIDS group

Jasikan (V/R), Nov 12, GNA - The Jasikan District Committee on AIDS, in collaboration with the Ghana AIDS Commission and Positive Live Foundation, a local NGO, has donated food items to orphans and a group of HIV sufferers as part of activities marking World AIDS Day. The recipients were Adom Orphanage at Tapa Abotoase and the Aboalepo People Living With HIV/AIDS at Nkonya.

Addressing the two groups separately, Mr Solomon Kwame Donkor, the District Chief Executive, urged people leaving with HIV/AIDS to put the past behind them and look to the future with hope.

He said they should focus on prolonging their lives because many people in similar situations continued to live longer and normal lives. Mr Donkor promised to make drugs available to them alongside services of a nutritionist to improve on their diets.

He said the District Assembly would adopt the orphanage and hoped the children would take their studies seriously and be morally upright. Mr Frank Amenu, District Monitoring and Evaluation Focal Person on HIV/AIDS, said emphasis was shifting from awareness creation on the disease to care giving, treatment, supply of antiretroviral drugs, food, clothing and economic empowerment of sufferers. He urged Community Based Organizations and other Non-Governmental Organizations to channel resources into these areas of managing the disease. The founder of the Adom orphanage, Ms Grace Nabaku, commended the District Assembly for the donation. Some of the orphans are survivors of boat disasters on the Volta Lake while the rest lost their parents through natural causes.