Christian Connections for International Health Annual Retreat/Conference 28 May 2006

Christian Connections for International Health Annual Retreat/Conference 28 May 2006

Presentation Overview • History of PACANet • Challenges in the development of the organization • Accomplishments to date within humble circumstances • Highlights of Most Recent Conference in Abuja • Organizational Turning Point • Current aims, plans, methods, infrastructure, and partners • Mid-term Vision

In the Beginning…… • Samaritan’s Purse Conference • Gaborone Meeting

Taking up the Challenge—Why PACANet? • Unheard voices, Untapped resources • Building Bridges--Reaching the Disenfranchised

Taking Up the Challenge • Biblical Mandate • “When I went to the public square and took my seat there, everyone who saw me spoke well of me. Why? Because I rescued the poor who cried for help and the fatherless who had none to assist them. The man who was dying blessed me; I made the widow's heart sing. I put on righteousness as my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban. I was eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, father to the needy. I took up the case of the stranger and broke the fangs of the wicked and snatched their victims from their teeth.”Job 29: 7-11

General Assembly Mandate • Vision --To have an HIV/AIDS free Africa where the impact of HIV/AIDS has been mitigated. • Mission--The Pan African Christian AIDS Network exists to link Churches, Christian organisations, and Networks to enhance their HIV/AIDS responses by sharing resources, ideas, skills, experiences and stimulating strategic partnerships.

General Assembly Mandate cont’d • Steering Committee • MAP, Balm, I.M.A., Baptist Mission of Zambia, ACET Uganda, Evangelical Association of Africa, Family Impact, etc • Constitution/Incorporation

General Assembly Mandate cont’d • Objectives • To facilitate networking, research, sharing of information and the establishment of links with strategic partners, churches, Christian organisations and Christian networks involved in HIV/AIDS work. • To support churches, Christian organisations and Christian networks in their advocacy role in critical HIV/AIDS issues. • To facilitate the strengthening of the capacities of churches, Christian organisations and Christian networks to comprehensively respond to the impact of HIV/AIDS. • To facilitate the mobilization of resources in support of churches, Christian organisations and Christian networks that are working in the HIV/AIDS field.

In the Meantime • Challenges • Direction/Focus • Staffing • Funding/Donor Interests • Livelihood Consultancies

In the Meantime cont’d • Accomplishments • Situational analysis of the Church’s response in Zambia, Uganda, Namibia and Swaziland in partnership with ActionAid. • Technical input in developing a church-based human resource team in Liberia in partnership with Danish Evangelical Mission (DEM). This initiative has lead to the formation of the Country Christian AIDS Network in Liberia. • Community mobilisation training in Namibia, South Africa, Botswana and Lesotho, aiming to engage and solicit community support particularly in the uptake of antiretroviral therapy. Production of a manual entitled “Training in Community Mobilisation”.

In the Meantime cont’d • More accomplishments: • Training programme for pastors and church leaders in Sierra Leone with Sudanmission in Denmark. • Three Pan African conferences, namely two Pre-ICASA symposiums one held in Nairobi in September 2003 themed ‘Consolidating a Christian Response’ and one held in Abuja, Nigeria in December 2005 themed ‘Improving the Standard: Building Partnerships with the Faith-Based Community’, and a Francophone conference, held in Burkina Faso in 2004.

Abuja Conference ‘05 Improving the Standard: Building Partnerships with the Faith-Based Community • Partners—Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Catholic Relief Services, CCIH • 216 Participants from 37 countries

Abuja Conference ‘05

Abuja Conference ’05ABC’s of Prevention • Clergy Training on technical and theological perspectives on HIV/AIDS and sexuality • Sexuality education curriculum which stressed self-discipline, pre-marital abstinence, marital fidelity and the role of the family as the base for sexuality education of children in the public schools. • Couples Weekends—bonding and communication skills building • Wide ranging views on condoms from unequivocal rejection, to passive non-condemnation, to limited use in situations with discordant couples. Others felt that strong AB programmes should be promoted while ensuring that C initiatives were there for appropriate audiences.

Abuja Conference ’05ABCs of Prevention cont’d • The group was challenged to examine more closely situations where the strict AB counseling has not at all been protective for certain people, such as women who have done the right thing but have contracted HIV from their spouse and subsequently died. Are we being responsible in our ministry to women if this is the result? • There is the need to expand beyond ABC to issues of development, women and children’s empowerment, dealing with issues of poverty and generally attending to contexts in which people are living.

Abuja Conference ’05Orphans and Vulnerable Children • Session began with a moment of silence where attendees reflected on the names of 5 orphans and/or vulnerable children who would be helped by their participation in this meeting. • Long standing tradition of caring for OVCs was cited as a strength. • Challenges included lack of management and lack of knowledge by church leadership as it relates to special needs related to HIV/AIDS.

Abuja Conference ’05Orphans and Vulnerable Children • Recommendations • Institute strategic plans for creating partnerships and guidelines for OVC work • Develop workshops on cultural practices that are helpful and harmful as it relates to OVC, inheritance, and gender issues.

Abuja Conference ’05Care and Support of PLWHAs • Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS is needed at all levels from policy making to planning, program design and implementation. The PACANet meeting itself was cited. Incorporation and accommodation are critical. • “Come to Me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” ALL is the key word that was emphasized and the group affirmed the need to have more of an open door of welcome for those in need.

Abuja Conference ’05Care and Support of PLWHAs • Volunteerism—retention and motivation. • Nutrition issues—all medicines in the world won’t help if people are starving. Plus, toxicity is an issue. • Palliative care—strong advantage via history of care to sick and shut-ins, but with increased HIV/AIDS burden issues of opioids and care giver burn out.

Abuja Conference ’05Treatment Track • Strengths • Supply Chain Management System Infrastructure provided by the Christian Health Associations. • There are also several countries that have partnered with generic manufacturers and have begun local production. • Model programs which have good integration of complimentary services such as VCT, DOT, nutrition, etc;

Abuja Conference ’05Treatment Track cont’d • Challenges • AIDS is too often framed as a moral issue, resulting in heightened stigma leading to low uptake of VCT as well as hiding rather than seeking adherence support. • Lack of coordination between different religious groups and denominations. • Even though church engagement in rural health is lauded, more resources are needed because some areas/people remain untouched or underserved. • Controversy within the church regarding integration of prevention strategies into treatment programming, is a challenge particularly related to division over the condoms issue.

Abuja Conference ’05Treatment Track cont’d CHALLENGES • Usage of a PMTCT regimen involving single dose Nevirapine and concern for the possible resulting development of resistance, as well as inadequate discrete programming for the women, as opposed to a view of them as vessels for the babies. • Pediatric treatment is rife with challenges, from adequate resources to support programming, to availability of proper formulations • Lack of church involvement in implementation of adherence support • Programs such as PEPFAR which restrict drugs they will supply and to drugs that are not allowed in some African countries and they disallow use of their funds for purchase of drugs that are approved and used in the host countries they purport to serve.

Abuja Conference ‘05 Special Group on the Family • Challenges • Women often bear an unfair burden in caring for the family. • Children are now being forced to head some families. • Grandparents and especially grandmothers have returned to being primary caregivers of small children. • Orphans are overwhelming the ability of the extended family to absorb them. • People living with HIV/AIDS sometimes suffer neglect, discrimination and rejection even in their families. • Spousal abuse, domestic and sexual violence are on the increase.

Abuja ConferenceFamily Group • HIV/AIDS fuels poverty and creates an ongoing spiral of disease and poverty that undermines family stability. • Household income is reduced and even land and property are lost while medical expenses increase. • Children are forced out of school. • Women and girls are pressured into becoming commercial sex workers. • Families are split apart by work commitments and some families even live in the street. By our silence, we have tolerated unbiblical practices that have fostered the oppression of women. These are issues that the Church can and must address.

Abuja Conference ’05Family Group • Recommendations • Correct the idea of rigid male domination and present a more Biblical understanding of gender relationships that stresses the equal value of men and women. In addition, we must resist female genital mutilation and empower our younger girls to resist the sexual advances of older men.

Abuja Conference ’05Family Group • Recommendations cont’d • Rearrange our priorities to focus more attention on family-related issues such as sexuality education and marriage enrichment. • Provide training and enhanced emphasis in our seminaries and other theological training institutions to better prepare our future leaders for their responsibilities to our families. • Equip pastors and church leaders to provide more teachings about family matters in the pulpit, the classroom and in their counseling. • Go beyond negative prohibitions related to sex to a holistic, meaningful and fulfilling presentation of relationships. • Develop more materials and provide more opportunities for Christian parents to develop responsible parenting skills.

Abuja Conference ’05Family Group • Recommendations cont’d • Address issues of economic empowerment to help break the downward spiral of poverty. • Consider reinstituting certain positive traditional practices of African cultures that will contribute to the strengthening of families, such as the sex education that was often presented in rites of passage. • Recognize that Christianity is a world-wide body and what affects the Church in Africa affects the Church around the world. Therefore, we appeal to those Christians who have influence in the global Church to encourage them to join hands by sharing resources to protect families from HIV/AIDS. • Provide adequate care and support for vulnerable children. • Speak out against the separation of families and, within the church, design policies that will prevent separation of families in the line of duty. • Stand with widows and others affected by HIV/AIDS and oppose those practices that compound their vulnerability. • Encourage and promote positive male role models.

Abuja Conference ’05Crosscutting Issues • Standards • It should be the community that sets the standards in deciding who is “needy” and how resources are distributed. • There was a call for churches themselves to establish and maintain minimum-optimal standards which focus on the aims of the church while guarding against corruption of focus that may encroach from outside forces. • Churches must strengthen monitoring and evaluations systems so that best practices upon which self-generated standards are built are well documented.

Abuja Conference ’05Crosscutting Issues cont’d • Partnerships • Many partnerships actually detract from church missions because churches find themselves becoming donor driven and manipulated by external motives that are not resonant with church core values and intentions. “The church has not been listening to the voices of the poor, but rather the voices of the rich donor.” • Increase networking and collaboration between churches to build on synergies. Work against dynamic of competition among the churches. • There must be formalized relationships, mutual agreement on objectives as well as articulated roles and responsibilities, clear individual identities, and mutual trust and respect

Abuja Conference ’05Crosscutting Issues cont’d The Church as the Voice of Justice “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool.”--MLK “Yes, I see the Church as the Body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.” --MLK “I have come not to bring peace, but a sword.” Matthew 10:34

Abuja Conference ’05Crosscutting Issues cont’d • Advocacy, practically speaking • Church needs to radically increase the volume of its voice on issues of access to resources (for communities/families/individuals, access to care and treatment and for organizations, access to technical, informational, financial resources) as well as access of affected communities/organizations to decision making chambers that govern the systems that so influence their lives.

Abuja Conference ’05Crosscutting Issues cont’d • Capacity Building • Human capacity development • Infrastructure improvement • Institutional strengthening • Sustainability • Built-in measures for exit strategies, from the beginning of donor engagement • Addressing erosion of volunteerism which has been the bedrock of church sustainability

Turning Point • Strategic Plan and Work Plan Development Process • Partners/Funding Bounty

How We Work • As a coordinating body, we seek to build linkages with strategic partners who have common aims but lack the mechanisms or relationships to link with the grassroots, and to involve and engage the services of a broad based resource bank of technical facilitation or service organisations to: • Develop and build the capacity of Christian Country AIDS Networks whose membership includes in country Christian AIDS interventions; and • Support both country networks and service organisations to empower, equip and facilitate grassroots church-based interventions to ultimately provide

How We Work Country Christian AIDS Networks Strategic Partners Grassroots Christian Interventions PACANet Facilitation/Service Organisations

Faithful Friends • CCIH • SIDA • DMCDD • Eriks

Immediate Plans • Improving and increasing the availability of information about Church and faith-based HIV/AIDS work; strengthening networking and improving and increasing strategic partnerships with the faith-based community. • In Zambia, currently helping to facilitate the development of a strategic plan for the Expanded Church Response (ECR), which serves as the Country Christian AIDS Network in Zambia. • Improving and enhancing the advocacy role of the Church, both within itself and as a unified voice on the critical issues of HIV/AIDS. • United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS • International AIDS Conference

Immediate Plans II • Strengthening and enhancing the capacity of churches, Christian organisations and Christian networks to comprehensively respond to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. • Listservs, conferences, training • Currently partnering with the Erikshjälpen Foundation, Sweden, to provide capacity building for its partners in a number of countries in East, West and Southern Africa. • Improving and increasing the resource base of Church and faith-based work in the field of HIV/AIDS. • PACANet Fidelity Initiative

Organizational Capacity Strengthening • Infrastructure • Policies—GIPA, Advocacy, Resource Mobilization • Staff Recruitment and Office Strengthening • Protocols/SOPs

Reshaping the Landscape • Defining Partnerships • Re-visiting Standards • Research—Telling Our Own Stories • Lifting Oft-Silent Voices

Thank You Asante Sana Muito Obrigado Muchos Gracias Danke schoen Grazie Bhala Hove Grazie tanto Dhanyavaad Xie_Xie Vaya Con Dios

Christian Connections for International Health Annual Retreat/Conference 28 May 2006