Post Tagged with: "programs"

From Burden to Blessing

The dawn of the new millennium cast a dark pall over the Southern African nation of Malawi.  The county faced a food crisis that was, in part, fueled by the loss of agricultural workforce due to AIDS-related deaths.  The national HIV prevalence rate was at 16%, and as high as 30% among pregnant women.  With the coming of anti-retroviral medication (ARVs) in 2003, NGOs and systems of government rushed to educate HIV positive people, who had by now organized into peer support groups within their communities.  Essential steps taken by these groups to living positively with the disease included good nutrition, practicing abstinence and safe sex, proper ARV adherence, as well as learning how to give home-based care to bed-ridden HIV positive peers in the community. Ten years later, support group members are not only some of the healthiest-looking people in their communities, they’re also talking to their negative or[…]

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Leave it to the Experts: Innovative HIV Programs in Malawi

We’ve reached a global hinge point in the treatment of HIV.  People living with the disease are no longer passive beneficiaries.  After more than a decade of receiving health and nutrition training, HIV+ people are often times living healthier lifestyles than many of their negative peers.  Catholic Relief Services‘ Expert Client program places trained HIV+ community members in local health facilities where they guide new patients through the rigors of anti-retroviral treatment (ARV).  By using their own experience of living with the disease to counsel and mentor, they empower the new patients to live more healthy and productive lives.  I recently shot and produced this video for CRS in southern Malawi.  The program is funded by USAID.

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