Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance

In the course of my writing about Malawi and her people, I happened upon a wonderful organization called the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance . Their mission statement is:

Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) partners with religious organizations in resource-poor countries for community-based HIV prevention and care.

We assist communities in developing locally initiated, planned, and led workshops that create detailed action plans for projects specific to community needs. These grass roots, village-level projects educate high risk groups about the disease, modify sexual behavior, promote voluntary counseling and testing for HIV, foster the social and economic empowerment of women, care for AIDS orphans, provide home-based care of ill persons, improve nutrition, and reverse the stigmatization of people with AIDS. Where medications and treatment are available, projects provide aggressive referral for treatment of opportunistic infections, sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV itself. We assist these projects through small grants and through assisting them with applications to other funding sources when appropriate.

One of the countries that they work in is Malawi. I have had the pleasure of corresponding with a retired physician who has been to Malawi for extended visits on several occasions with GAIA. Our discussions haunt me.

GAIA has a fact sheet on Malawi, with some facts that I did not mention in my earlier post that you may find interesting. I urge you to spend some time on the the GAIA website . And I urge you to look at their video.