Red Cross looks to its own on HIV/AIDS issue

The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has made a frank admission that it needs to do more in view of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, but also to tackle the disease and its effects within its own organisation and in the national Red Cross societies with which it has partnerships. In keeping with the recent HIV/AIDS focus, heightened by World AIDS Day on 1 December and the Economic Commission of Africa special conference on HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia last week, the IFRC announced a dramatic scaling up of its HIV/AIDS activities in 53 countries across Africa. It launched a donor appeal for $10.5 million to ensure better management and support for its volunteer network in the campaign, which would focus on a “people to people, house to house” approach towards raising awareness, promoting condom use and providing support to AIDS orphans and people living with the virus. In addition, the Federation announced it was mobilising a network of two million volunteers to combat the spread of the disease on the continent, where an estimated 25.3 million people are infected, over the next 10 years. But it also said it was working “to make the Red Cross Red Crescent a better ‘home’ for people in the movement living with HIV/AIDS.” “We must put our own house in order by making our organization a better place for people living with HIV/AIDS by breaking the silence around the issue. There are estimated to be over 100,000 of our volunteers in Africa living with HIV/AIDS and many more worldwide,” said Francoise LeGoff, IFRC Head of Regional Delegation in Nairobi. Crucial to the Federation’s effort to “help its own” is hearing the testimony of those in the organisation who are living with the virus, and listening to those who have lost cherished colleagues and friends, according to a press statement. As part of this initiative, a number of those Red Cross volunteers living with HIV/AIDS participated in a special video made by the IFRC to promote awareness and help remove the stigma of HIV. Among them was David Mukasa, a Ugandan Red Cross volunteer. Speaking on the video, he said: “HIV is one of those things you don’t lease or borrow. When you get HIV it is a done deal and, if you are not supported through it, you are always conscious of your mortality.” “What we encourage mostly for us people living with HIV and AIDS is to learn to live positively, although we have the virus,” said another HIV-positive Red Cross volunteer, Josephine Chiturumani from Zimbabwe. “If you are caring for someone who is HIV positive and you yourself are HIV positive, then we will be able to understand each other better.” The challenge the IFRC has set for itself is to initiate a debate on the real issues it faces in relation to HIV/AIDS - both as an institution and as people within it - vis a vis Red Cross programmes in general and workers in particular. And the Federation’s hope: That it commit itself with renewed vigour “to fight this pandemic within and beyond the movement, through our personal actions and our national programme - to find a better way we might all live with HIV/AIDS.”