Tanzania steps up fight on AIDS

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

The Anglican Church of Tanzania recently held a five-day workshop to develop four-year health and HIV/AIDS strategic plan. The workship included partners from several aid and church groups, including churches in the Anglican provinces of Africa.

The church has been actively involved in HIV/AIDS care and prevention, but intends to scale up its activities. Provincial HIV/AIDS co-ordinator Neema Majule expressed satisfaction with the planning process saying what was left was implementation, some of which was already going on.

The Tanzanian church runs 12 hospitals and more than 40 dispensaries and clinics all over the country. The church is also engaged in health, consumers’ rights, advocacy, malaria control, maternal health care and youth reproductive health programs. Recently, the church launched a youth HIV/AIDS education campaign.

The Anglican church in Burundi is also planning to respond strategically to the HIV/AIDS crisis. “It is important to influence leaders but also to make an impact at grass roots where the silence about AIDS and sexuality needs to be broken,” an Anglican source said. “Workshops have already taken place in prisons, schools, military camps, and in camps for displaced people.”