Anti-HIV/AIDS education must go with poverty reduction - Focal person

Gomoa Brofoyedur (C/R), May 28, GNA - The Gomoa District HIV/AIDS Focal Person, Mr Eric Akobeng has called on district, Municipal and Metropolitan Assemblies to take a second look at disbursement of fiscal cash to the needy under the poverty reduction programme.

Mr Akobeng, who is also the District Budget Analyst, held that disbursements do not make any impact on poverty reduction due to misapplication of the moneys by recipients.

This has made it necessary for the assemblies to consider either to channel the interventions through provision of tools and materials for the recipients to establish their own businesses, or by investing such funds in job creation, he said.

He made the call at a sensitisation workshop on HIV/AIDS, organised by Gomoa Brofoyedur Women and Youth Association, a community-based organisation (CBO) at Brofoyedur near Apam.

Mr Akobeng said since poverty has been identified as a driving force in the spread of HIV/AIDS, poverty reduction interventions should be judiciously used to make the vulnerable people, especially the unemployed youth, benefit from them.

"Education alone cannot reduce the spread of the disease. It must go hand-in-hand with commitment to poverty reduction," he stressed.

Alhaji Moro Fukuyama, a member of the Gomoa District AIDS Committee, who led the participants to discuss the mode of transmission and prevention, cautioned against leading promiscuous lifestyles.

Nana Apaade Abbam, Queen mother of Brofoyedur and chairperson of the CBO, advised the participants to desist from stigmatising and discriminating against people living with the disease.