The Church must help people living with HIV and AIDS

Reverend Dr. Emmanuel Adjei Komla Amey, Clerk of the General Assembly, Evangelical Presbyterian Church, has called on the Church to help provide comprehensive care for people living with HIV and AIDS.

He said the Church as the light and the salt of the Earth must provide some workable alternatives or solutions in bringing hope to the hopeless and not sit on the fence.

Rev. Dr Amey was speaking at a relaunch of Evangelical Presbyterian Development and Relief Agency’s (EPDRA) AIDS and Tuberculosis programme in Ho, on the theme: “HIV and AIDS: Stop the stigmatization, prevent new infections.”

“In responding to the needs of people living with HIV and AIDS, the Church must provide them with comprehensive care, such as appropriate clinical management, nursing care, laboratory services, counselling services, pastoral care and social support,” he stated.

He said it was only within the Church that people living with HIV and AIDS could find help to search their souls and to discover the ultimate meaning and human dignity with which every person had been endowed. Rev. Dr. Amey also urged the Church to develop a compassionate programme that would engender a practical caring response to people living with HIV.

Presbyter Charles Sitsofe Sakyi, Presbyter Executive of the General Assembly, E.P. Church, said EPDRA’s vision as a faith-based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) was to spearhead reduction in poverty in its various dimensions in the country.

He said the NGO was also to empower the poor, vulnerable people and groups in society through education and capacity building so that they could acquire the needed skills and knowledge to enable them to improve upon their standard of living.

Mr Sakyi said the Organization also engaged in activities that facilitated processes for good governance, sound environment, healthy practices and developing investment opportunities for its long-term sustainability.

He said “EPDRA’s niche lies in the use of participatory or community-based approaches in all its intervention programmes where beneficiary groups and communities are part of the whole process of the project identification through implementation to the monitoring and evaluation stages to ensure project ownership and sustainability". GNA