Progress Report

AIDS Prevention and Care Programs in Yunnan and Henan

Period covered: May - Oct 2004


HIV/AIDS Prevention Training Courses for Church Leaders

Over a hundred training courses on HIV/AIDS prevention have been organized in Henan and Yunnan provinces since the launch of this program. Another 34 courses were held between May to October 2004. Church leaders, lay workers and church volunteers attended the courses and passed on what they learned to their communities afterwards.

A training course conducted for local church leaders in Shangqiu, Henan

Many participants shed tears of gratitude during the training courses. They said the training was like timely rain which waters crops that have been suffering in a long drought. "You saved our lives," said two women believers, grasping the hands of Ms. Li Xiuying, a woman pastor in Zhumadian, Henan. "A girl died of AIDS last wee and her relatives dared not touch her because of their ignorance about AIDS. We laid her out and dressed her and arranged her funeral out of the love of God. However, this in turn made our families worried about us because they thought we might have caught AIDS from touching the girl. They were even reluctant to let us return home or touch us. Many church members think like this. We were scared and regretted helping the girl, this whole thing became such a heavy burden on our hearts, and we just waited to die. But..." (they could not help smiling) "we are not afraid now. The training course has informed us about how AIDS is transmitted. We know how to prevent it now."

The training courses have achieved two main results:

1. The AIDS prevention awareness rate has increased.

As a general rule, we conduct surveys before and after training courses. Before each course, about 20% of the participants knew about AIDS, about 30% feared AIDS greatly and some 40-50% had never heard of AIDS. Post-training surveys reveal that 80% of the participants could clearly identify the main means of HIV/AIDS and its prevention. All participants expressed a willingness to share the knowledge they have learned with their communities afterwards.

2. People's attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS changed.

Through the training organized by Amity, church leaders and lay workers gained a proper understanding of HIV/AIDS, while their Christian love inspired their responsibility to share their knowledge about HIV/AIDS prevention with others. Participants tried all the means they knew how to share their knowledge, not only in church but also in their surrounding communities. The training courses aim to give people comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS so as to allow them to lead a healthy lifestyle and to help establish a supportive and protective social system for people living with HIV/AIDS. Through training, participants realized that AIDS is a disaster for human beings and that it could easily get out of control. HIV/AIDS has the potential to develop in to a health crisis much more severe than SARS, and the final result could be the devastation of whole communities. Therefore, people need to be mobilized now to eliminate the virus before it spreads too widely.

Henan


Zhoukou Gospel Hospital

Volunteers from local churches offer HIV/AIDS education to the public in Shangqiu, Henan

Zhoukou, located on the eastern plain of Henan province, is a large municipality with a huge surrounding agricultural population. Due to its backward economic development, the medical and health care infrastructure in the area is much worse than in other cities. People generally suffer from poor health in this area and are often unable to afford medical treatment. From May to October 2004, the Zhoukou Gospel Hospital provided free medical check-ups for 666 participants who attended the Amity training and also for women from AIDS-stricken villages. Through the check-ups, doctors taught patients how to prevent HIV infection and how to take care of people living with HIV/AIDS.

Amity "Medical Chests"

Amity established five "Medical Chests" in different villages in Henan to offer care to people living with HIV/AIDS. Medical workers in village clinics provide free medical check-up to villagers and give out free medication to help alleviate the different symptoms of AIDS patients. The five "Medical Chests" are located in: Long Chi Tou Village in Xihua County, Song Shu Village in Dancheng County, Duanzhuang Village in Queshan County, Donghu Village in Xincai County, and Sunzhuang Village in Weishi County. The five clinics keep complete records of check-up results and patients' medication.

Yunnan


Work in Lincang

The main work we are doing in Lincang, in cooperation with the Center for Disease Control, is visiting families with HIV-positive or AIDS-patient members. We also offer HIV/AIDS prevention training to long-distance truck drivers, training in care for HIV-positive persons, medical check-ups, project management conferences and rehabilitation work with drug addicts. Our main aim here is to help local people lead a healthier lifestyle.

A. Training for High Risk Groups

1. Courses on medical treatment, health care and psychological counseling for HIV-infected people.

The local project manager and medical worker made a careful study of the psychological frame-of-mind of the target group and used every minute to communicate with participants. Mr. Wang, a volunteer on the project, was invited to give a speech during the training course. He shared his own experiences of drug addiction, which had greatly harmed his family. Mr. Qian, the leader of the local church, gave a speech on how to develop a healthier view towards life and the world. He encouraged participants to make changes in their lives, regain their courage, and re-enter mainstream society.

2.HIV/AIDS prevention training for long-distance truck drivers.

Mr. Wang Yunsheng, an official from the Yunnan AIDS Prevention Office, was invited to give a lecture on basic HIV/AIDS awareness. A survey revealed that the training had increased truck drivers' awareness of HIV/AIDS prevention from 76.8% to 98%.

3. HIV/AIDS prevention training for drug users.

This training focused on explaining the harm of drug addiction and the dangers of sharing syringes.

B. The "Garden of Love" Band

The Love Garden band performing at a drug detoxification center in Lincang, Yunnan

The "Garden of Love" band is composed of those infected with HIV. They give performances on streets, in schools, hotels, places of entertainment and on farms. Their performances focus on persuading people to abandon drug abuse. The band adopts different styles in different places. They sing of the beauty of life and warn people to keep away from drugs. On the evening of June 26th, the band gave a performance in the center of the city. Their theme was "The call from my heart". Mr. Wang, a band member, reached out to people by singing of his own experiences. Their performance attracted almost 2,000 people, and they distributed 1,200 handbooks, 400 cards and 100 posters on HIV/AIDS prevention to the audience. The band was also invited by the local Health School to give a performance to over 300 students. The students came away from the performance with a much deeper understanding of the effects of drug abuse.

C. Visiting families of people living with HIV/AIDS

It is a difficult and complicated task to visit families of people living with HIV/AIDS. This requires a genuine love for HIV-positive persons, devotion to HIV/AIDS prevention work, and a strong sense of responsibility, as well as close personal contact with those visited. Project workers should be able to freely communicate with those they visit, completely understanding them and leading them to a better life. Visitors directly determine the effectiveness of this project. Furthermore, many HIV-infected persons who used to be drug addicts would prefer that other people not know of their past. They are isolated from mainstream society, both materially and psychologically, and they thus feel alienated from society to a certain extent. So, it is quite difficult to reach out to such persons.

Visiting a family with a HIV-infected member

Project workers invited three people who used to be drug addicts to take part in this project. They had a good education and thus carried a certain prestige among drug addicts. With their help, we got to know the psychological frame-of-mind of the people we were reaching out to. The three volunteers gained the trust of drug addicts and accompanied project workers to visit families. From May to October, they visited a total of 99 families. The distance between project worker and these families became smaller and smaller. Families started to come and seek for help and expressed to us their determination to change their situations.

Case Study: Fang, male, 30 years old farmer, lives in Mangpan Village. When the group visited his home, he came out to welcome us by shaking hands with us. During the visit, he told us how he got addicted to drugs and how things had deteriorated since then. After enduring compulsory detoxification, he was sent back home and stopped taking drugs. One year ago, he adopted two orphans from an orphanage and sent them to school with the money he made with his own hands.

D. Projects which enable self-support

Amity has identified the Lingcang Drug Detoxification Center as a base for pilot self-support projects for drug addicts. These mainly involve manual labour on the farm attached to the Center. In order to help rebuild the confidence of the HIV-infected persons participating in this project, the Center has tried to grow new kinds of potatoes and rice in consultation with the Center's leaders and local farming experts. After four month's of experimentation, they harvested 12,000 kilos of produce and earned more than RMB 9,000 from this. This success has changed things for the Center's residents, they can now work on the farm, contribute to its productivity and feel they are doing something worthwhile. All this has had a positive effect on their frame-of-mind. The future of this project is promising.

The involvement of Lincang church in the prevention, control and concern for HIV/AIDS

Since the project began, the Lincang church has been cooperating with the local Center for Disease Control, training other believers in HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention and also in the skills of psychological counseling. Believers then spread this knowledge by arranging local training courses every week. The number of people attending such courses has risen from 150 to 300. Church-assisted project workers travel from village to village, visiting HIV-infected persons. They fully represent the local church leaders' concern about the issue of HIV/AIDS, as well as expressing their compassion for those who are suffering from this virus. The visits have demonstrated some success in helping HIV-infected persons change their behavior and return to mainstream society as a renewed person.