Channels of Hope for HIV Facilitator Training

In the past, HIV and AIDS was something which people were scared to talk about and mostly the advocates were motivated by huge salaries and other incentives which was not aligned with serving people who are really affected and infected.

 Our partner organisation from Zambia asked AIDSLink to train their workers who have a passion to serve the community around HIV and AIDS. These workers who came for training where not motivated by salaries but by the need they see in the communities around them.

The training was based on the transformation of the mind and attitude (reset) towards people living with HIV, as we looked on the basic principles of HIV and AIDS. The trainers challenged the participants on how they can be engaged in this task (Restart) and how they can bring a difference in their communities they are living in. Some participants did not know the number of people living with HIV in the world, and it was a shock to many of them when they came to know that more than 37 million people are living with HIV. One participant confessed, ‘we need to refocus our attention to this need.’  It was encouraging to see how these participants were contributing to the class and how they realized the great need which is at their doorstep. The COVID issue was looked at and how it has drawn the attention of everyone and how huge of resources has been given towards that, although some parts of the world the resource was not used properly. The trainers challenged the participants to have the same urgency of overseeing the issue of HIV, then we will see the enormous difference in every community.

At the end of the training the participants recommitted themselves to start mobilizing more people to join on the work of HIV. Some are planning to bring sustainable projects to people who are living with HIV. It was a great excitement to the trainers to see how the participants responded and the interest they showed to this task.