The call for religious leaders and groups to be more deeply involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS was once again advocated on Thursday, when several religious leaders and members from faith-based organizations from across Guyana participated in the Guyana National Conference on Faith and HIV.
The forum, which was held at the International Convention Centre, Liliendaal was a collaborative effort between the National AIDS Programme Secretariat of the Ministry of Health and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS(UNAIDS). Participants had gathered to discuss how to implement eleven recommendations that were decided upon at a meeting of faith leaders earlier this year. Two of the main recommendations coming out of this roundtable discussion were that faith leaders needed to make themselves and councils more approachable and that other measures other than abstinence and discipline needed to be promoted, since they were not the only solutions.
Further, the recommendations also called for faith leaders and each faith to discuss HIV-related stigma and discrimination.
Earlier in the day, those gathered were addressed by Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy, who stated that it was due to the silence of persons (including religious leaders) to discuss HIV that Guyana and the rest of the world had witnessed the growth of this disease. He said the failure of religious organizations to address the issue in the 1980s, was partly why there was a crisis in the 1990s. However, he called on religious bodies to become chief campaigners against the stigma that is often attached to persons affected with the disease.
Meanwhile, religious leaders Canon Gideon Byamugisha (from Uganda), Professor Akhtarul Wasey and Swami Agnivesh (both from India) also addressed the gathering and they called for religious leaders to actively address HIV/AIDS and to do their best to help remove stigma against the persons suffering from the disease.
Byamugisha during his presentation told the gathering that he was HIV-positive, and shared briefly about some of the stigma he has attracted. During his deliberations he emphasized that HIV/AIDS was anti-God because it reduces the quality of lives of persons and because it often leaves children destitute. He also said that “stigmatizing people and their families, regions, continents etc. because of HIV was both sin and sinful.”
Additionally, he reminded the audience that HIV and HIV-related complications could happen to anybody at anytime.
The keynote address was delivered by Sir George Alleyne, the Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General on HIV in the Caribbean, while Prime Minister Samuel Hinds officially declared the conference open.
