| Sub-Saharan Africa is dying from AIDS because of cultural taboo By Lesley Crosson United Methodist News Service Cultural and religious traditions make talking to people about the HIV/AIDS epidemic almost impossible because it is a topic so closely associated with sexual behavior. Yet an estimated 28 million people are living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, and new cases are cropping up at an alarming rate. People are no longer dying of ignorance (of the causes of the disease). We are now working on changing behaviors, says Tabitha Manyinyiri, a former community health nurse at United Methodist-related Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe. It is ironic that Africa University is working so hard to produce future leaders when many students have died or will die of the disease before they can make a difference, Manyinyiri says. We have a house on fire, and we need to find a way to put out the flames, she said. World AIDS Day, observed Dec. 1, will focus attention on such efforts by organizations around the globe and the dire need that drives them. Countering stigma and discrimination is the theme for World AIDS Day 2002. The fight to control the spread of the disease and to provide spiritual and material comfort to the afflicted and their families may be the largest battle ever fought door to door, family to family. Caroline Njuki, a staff executive with the Board of Global Ministries, remembers the extreme discomfort of a young United Methodist pastor at a church in a Ugandan village where some 65 percent of the worshippers are young people. Njuki explained to him that she had to address the issue and asked if anyone had talked to the youth. If the ground could have swallowed him, he would have been so happy to be swallowed. It really mortified him, she said. Discussing HIV/AIDS with adult members of the church was no less difficult. I had to let them know that if we cant talk about this we are dead because first we must change what is necessary and what is possible to change. During the past two years, the Board of Global Ministries has offered and funded an ambitious ministry of education, health and relief concentrated in Africa. Work also is being done by conferences and local churches in the United States. The board coordinates several HIV/AIDS initiatives through the United Methodist Committee on Relief. The work is supported with $250,000 in World Service funds. The money has helped pay for workshops, health supplies, pamphlets and assistance to United Methodist hospitals, orphanages and families caring for HIV/AIDS patients. The National AIDS Council in Zimbabwe estimates over 700,000 orphans in the country have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS-related deaths. In a voice weighted with sadness, the Rev. Irene Kabete, pastor of Inner City Church in Harare, said that in her congregation, We have more orphans in the church because the father died and then in a few years the mother died. Some 1,500 Zimbabwe youngsters are cared for through the Uzumba Orphan Trust, (United Methodist Advance No. 982842-6), which allows children orphaned by AIDS to stay in their homes and receive regular visits from trained caregivers. The material resources that appear to be having the most immediate effect are the Healthy Homes and Healthy Families kits provided by UMCOR, and donated by local congregations in the United States. The kits contain clean sheets, rubber gloves and other items to care for patients and to help prevent the spread of the infection to caregivers. | 
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