Religious Leaders and HIV

Voice 1:
Hello and welcome to Spotlight. I’m Marina Santee.

Voice 2:
And I’m Ruby Jones Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1:
December the first is World AIDS Day. Every year, the Day has a special subject, a theme. For 2008, the theme is leadership. In today’s Spotlight we look at a particular kind of leader. This leader is not a doctor, not a health worker, and not a government official. And yet he or she can play a big part in the struggle against HIV and AIDS. In our programme today, we look at the important work of… the religious leader.

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In many communities, a religious leader has great influence. He (or she) has authority. That authority can influence the way communities treat people who have the HIV virus or the AIDS disease. That authority can influence efforts to prevent the spread of the virus in their communities.

Voice 1:
Pastor Maxwell Kapachawo is a church minister in Zimbabwe. He became sick in 2001. He did not believe that his sickness was connected to HIV. But in 2004, he discovered that it was. He was HIV positive. He said,

Voice 3:
‘It seemed like the end for me. I wanted to die fast before my community knew about it’

Voice 1:
Pastor Maxwell stopped leading his church. But then he spoke to a friend, another church minister. His friend told him that having HIV did not make him a bad person. He told Maxwell that he should begin to serve God again. Maxwell attended a conference for religious leaders with HIV. And soon after this, he decided to go back to church. He decided to tell his church that he was HIV positive. Pastor Maxwell remembers:

Voice 3:
‘Three weeks after I told them, about half the church people had gone for HIV tests. They were happy to have the tests because they had seen life in me.’

Voice 2:
Pastor Maxwell knows that church leaders can act positively and negatively towards people with HIV. He says it is tragic when a religious leader rejects someone because they have HIV. He says,

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‘Religious leaders need to be better informed. They need training about how to help people with HIV. Then, they would be able to act in a more understanding and supportive way.’

Voice 2:
Pastor Maxwell is part of an organisation that encourages people to speak openly about HIV and AIDS. Its members are all religious leaders. And they are all personally affected by HIV. They either have the virus themselves, or they know someone with it. The organisation helps its members to see their situation positively. It helps them see how they can lead and guide other people. The organisation began as a movement in Africa. But today it is an international organisation. It is called INERELA+.

INERELA+ includes leaders from many faiths. The current head of INERELA+ is James Matarazzo. He told Spotlight,

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“Our beginning was Christian, but now we are multi-faith… Everyone respects each other’s traditions… We have Moslem leaders, Jewish leaders, Hindus, Buddhist monks… “

Voice 2:
INERELA+‘s members do not all share the same beliefs about religion. But they all see the value of working together to fight HIV/AIDS. They encourage one another, across the divides of different faiths. Then, they use their experience to help their own communities. They have learned to talk about HIV in their own lives. And this encourages the people they lead to talk about it too.