Accra, 28/02/08… The Woyome Foundation for Africa (WOFA) has visited the All Saints Anglican School in Accra for an HIV/AIDS outreach program.
The program is geared towards equipping young pupils with information on HIV/AIDS, educate and encourage abstinence and safe sex practice and also prepare them to be peer educators.
The WOFA Outreach Team led by HIV/AIDS Coordinator Stella Afriyie-Ankrah had an interesting session with the over 800 pupils of the school, the teachers and head teacher.
They educated the school on and about the practices that can lead to infection, encouraged them to choose abstinence and relate to any person infected with HIV just as they will relate to a non-infected person.
The pupils and their teachers congratulated the WOFA team, with some of the pupils indicating that “the program has helped in preparing us to be confident in talking to our friends about HIV/AIDS.”
Coming just days after the National AIDS Control Program released statistics showing that Accra has an HIV prevalence rate of 3.4%, Mrs. Afriyie- Ankrah says the visit is a pilot phase of a ‘Schools Outreach Campaign’ planned for the second quarter of 2008.
The Campaign would involve an educational and behavioural change advocacy that will include “bringing young people into direct contact with HIV infected persons in order to appreciate that HIV exists; fight stigmatization; promote abstinence plus and equip them with information to use as peer educators.”
The Africa Life Aid Project is the platform created by WOFA to pool global efforts and raise funds to sponsor HIV/AIDS education, Prevention, Therapy, and the Care for orphans of AIDS. Africa is our primary target because of the huge numbers of infections and deaths, and also because of the enormous, but not insurmountable challenges in opening up dialogues about HIV/AIDS. [MORE]
