The African Network of Religious Leaders living with or personally
affected by HIV and AIDS (ANERELA+) was formed after a meeting held
in Mukono, Uganda in November 2002 marking the 10th anniversary of
Canon Gideon Byamugisha living openly with HIV.
Our membership
includes any religious leader, ordained or lay, who is either HIV+ or
is personally affected by the disease. We understand personally
affected to be someone who is either nursing or has lost a child,
spouse or parent to HIV or AIDS.
Having all experienced stigma
and discrimination first-hand, we seek to find ways of breaking
stigma, silence, indifference and discrimination around HIV and AIDS.
We strive to be a network of support without judgment.
Our
comparative advantage is that we are religious leaders living with or
personally affected by HIV and AIDS. We believe that by living openly
with our HIV status we can do much to overcome the stigma,
discrimination and many of the taboos around this disease.
We
are in the unique position of being able to lend support to others
who find themselves in our position by not only offering support but
by helping others to both accept their status and help them through
the process of disclosure and open living if they so choose. Our
growing network already has members in seven countries in Africa and
we strive to expand this to at least 12 nations in the next three
years.
Our ultimate vision is to have an African region where
religious leaders living positively and affected by HIV and AIDS are
empowered to live openly as witnesses to hope and be forces for
change in their congregations and communities.
In this we
identify very strongly with the theme for the 11th International
Conference for people living with HIV or AIDS being held in Kampala
26 – 30 October 2003, namely “The Dawn of New Positive
Leadership.” We also identify very strongly with all people who
are living with HIV or AIDS, and it is for these reasons that we have
chosen to officially launch our network during this conference.
We
wish in particular to thank GNP+ for their wonderful generosity in
both inviting us and providing scholarships for fifteen of our
members to attend this conference, all made possible by the generous
funding received from the CORE initiative. We also wish to thank
World Vision International who has made it possible for us to fly our
members to Uganda and accommodate them so as to hold our first
General Meeting and to attend this conference.
We ask the
support of the HIV-positive community as we endeavour to work with
them in not only breaking the silence, stigma, indifference and
discrimination around HIV and AIDS, but also to ensure that all
people of every creed are treated with dignity and respect, and that
they receive the non-judgmental support they need to be full and
active members of their various communities.
We also call on
the donor community to continue to support us in this pursuit. Where
our skills and comparative advantage can be married with the
necessary funding and support, we believe we can make an irreversible
positive impact on the lives of all people living with HIV or AIDS,
and all communities affected by it.
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