God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

08/31/2009 • 10:30 pm Comments Off on 31.08.2009… turns out to be a blessed Monday…

31.08.2009… turns out to be a blessed Monday…

It is Monday afternoon when I have a contact with my Bishop in Trier. And now it is official:

I will serve for the next 5 years here in Cape Town, working in the fields of HIV and AIDS, specially HOPE Cape Town and the Catholic AIDS Network and all, what comes with it.  After being a chaplain of two German speaking Catholic Communities the last year, I change to be a “Fidei Donum ” Priest – means a present of the faith. The expression comes from Paul VI and one of his documents (Encyclical Fidei Donum), asking the European churches to give priests to the developing world to assist in the development of the local churches. Admitted, meanwhile it seems that the European churches need assistance.. But nevertheless, it still is a working mechanism, specially for the church in Latin America.

I am grateful and relieved, that after a year of unpleasant experiences and disappointments a constructive talk was possible with my new Bishop in Trier and that this constructive meeting turned the situation into a solution which is beneficial to the church, the people and also takes into account my talents and charisma. It shows, that we are able within the church to find good solutions, if we only want to…

Living at the Cape of Good Hope, working with HOPE Cape Town – so nomen est omen… somehow it seems.

What does it mean now for me in practice?  I will start working on the 1.10.2009 for HOPE Cape Town and the Catholic Aids Network – leaving my offices at the Mediterranean Villa, the community center and occupying offices in Newlands and at Tygerberg Campus of the University of Stellenbosch. And I am invited to supply for the Archdiocese of Cape Town, whenever time permits and need arises. So I stay as a priest within my church and work in the fields I have gained some knowledge and expertise the last years.

It is indeed sad to leave the communities, but it is also exciting to know, what lies ahead and to be able – after one year of being tossed from one corner to the other – to plan ahead again in a systematic way. So it was more than an ordinary Monday, I came home blessed with a final decision, a perspective and lots of ideas how to pursue the new task. Indeed, miracles happen in our days…… 🙂

Filed under: HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Reflection, , , , , , , ,

08/29/2009 • 1:04 am Comments Off on 29.08.2009 Religious Leaders Absent in the Anti-AIDS Fight & the POZ initiative

29.08.2009 Religious Leaders Absent in the Anti-AIDS Fight & the POZ initiative

The following article I found today on the website “the body” – and caught my attention:
Religious Leaders Absent in the Anti-AIDS Fight  August 21, 2009
Though they exert great influence in the communities in which they serve, religious leaders are not doing enough to fight HIV/AIDS, said experts at the recent ninth International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, held in Bali, Indonesia. “Many religious groups and leaders are unwilling to address HIV/AIDS and make it a priority. Their commitment level is quite low, particularly when compared to the size of their budget and the amount of work they do,” said Donald Messer of the US-based Center of Church and Global AIDS. “We’ve been talking about HIV/AIDS and the religious groups’ response for three decades now. We’re still talking too much even now,” said Fiji’s Dominica Abo. The “most powerful contribution” religious leaders can make is addressing stigma, discrimination, and biases that put groups like women at high risk for the disease. The epidemics impact on women and children needs to be addressed from a faith-based perspective, said the Rev. Youngsook Charlene Kang of the United Methodist Church in the United States, noting that women account for nearly half of all infections worldwide. “We need to call on religious leaders to educate and create new pathways within our churches for parishioners to learn the role that faith communities can play.” Messer noted that many conservative Muslim and Christian groups continue to preach against contraceptives, including condoms, believing they promote promiscuity. “[Yet] when used directly and consistently, condoms are humanity’s best protection and weapon against HIV/AIDS,” he said. “Some religious leaders are more eager to preserve the purity or correctness of theological perspectives than their task to save human lives.”
I guess, that the POZ initiative of HOPE Cape Town and the Justice & Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Cape Town will make a difference and highlight, that we take the fight against stigma, discrimination and bias serious. By working with and for priests, religious and seminarians, who are living with the virus, we address the double stigma of being infected and being infected as a “sacred” person, so to speak.  In this sense we can see a double discrimination – and of course also the bias, as many church leaders do not acknowledge that the pandemic also is amongst us, the clergy.
I am personally thrilled that we got the permission from the local Archbishop of Cape Town to work in this field – and when I will visit the papal council for health care workers end of the year, I will address it and hope that they join hands to work for a transformation from stigma to charisma.

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

08/25/2009 • 11:14 pm Comments Off on 25.08.2009 A long day…

25.08.2009 A long day…

A long day draws to an end, filled with meetings, paper work and the management meeting of HOPE Cape Town. It is amazing to see where we are at now after 8 years of work.  Academic research and grass root projects are filling the agenda, and the question, whether one can do an outing during Ramadan, as we have employees of Muslim faith.
The discussion shows how sensitive the issue is – and that during Ramadan, some Muslims want to refrain from social activities.
The group of employees had decided nevertheless to do the outing – but this discussion will be surely a focus point during the time to discuss different cultures and resulting expectations. It also shows that it is necessary to keep a calender with all important religious times to give space to the needs of those taking religion seriously.

After two years, all HOPE community health workers are going for two days away, for most of them it is a real break from daily life and the daily struggle. But it should also be an opportunity to debrief our men and women at the forefront of our work. It is amazing with what they all have to cope with: work, sometimes very poor working conditions, extended families with all the problems, own kiddies and those of the sisters and brothers and so on and so on…

41 HOPE community health worker have been employed by HOPE Cape Town during the last 8 years, most of them have climbed the latter at a certain point, well trained the Province of the Western Cape has snatched some away and promoted to good position within the health system. HOPE Cape Town becomes more and more a starting point for people, who seriously want to get involved in heath issues and community work, based at the respective primary health care facility.

The two hour management meeting is full of proposals, requests, lots of decision are taken which will be implemented in the next days and weeks from our staff. It is amazing, but you go home with the feeling that you really can change the world a little bit.. at least here in South Africa, here in the Western Cape.  Great stuff!

Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Reflection, , , , , , , ,

08/23/2009 • 5:51 pm Comments Off on 23.08.2009 The last birthday…

23.08.2009 The last birthday…

The last birthday
Little Fareed’s death – a common outrage in Africa

Fareed is emaciated and he breathes heavily. For a ten-year-old boy he weighs too little and his eyes seem far too big for his face. And yet, Fareed is one of the luckier children. He has been admitted into a hospital, the Ithemba ward at Tygerberg Hospital. Fareed’s sister has sat by his bedside for days. She holds his hand, helps to change the bedding, comforts him. When I meet Fareed for the first time, volunteers have just made up his complexion with base. His big, sunken eyes look at me with quiet determination. Fareed has a yearning desire: he wants to have a birthday party. He was there when a little girl in the next room had a birthday party, organised by colleagues from HOPE Cape Town. It had a cake with candles and presents and all the trimmings. He would like that too. But there is one problem: Fareed will not live to see his next birthday. He has only days to live.
We decide to grant him his last wish anyway. We bake cakes, buy gifts, and decorate the room. And two days later we celebrate his “eleventh birthday”. Fareed cannot get up, so all the children are gathered around his bed, the birthday cake with burning candles on the sidetable. We help him to unwrap his presents – he is too weak to do even that. Our chorus of “Happy Birthday” sounds more like a swansong. I struggle to hold back my tears, as does everybody else. It is a cheerful horror party which I won’t forget as long as I live. But little Fareed is happy. A smile frequent smile floods across his face; he doesn’t have enough strength to animate his joy. A week later Fareed dies. These beautiful memories are distorted by a rage that this child had to die because at the time the medications which might have relieved his suffering and extend his life were unaffordable. It was an unnecessary, senseless death. And yet it is this particular death which revitalises me in times of despair, when I’m about to give up, when the sheer enormity of the suffering I see threatens to crush me. Fareed, a fleeting acquaintance in my life, has seared himself into my heart with a scorching intensity. When doubts start to take over, I think about him and remind myself why I am involved: on behalf of Fareed and all the children and adolescents I have watched suffering and dying from Aids, some in calm serenity, others crying in pain. Every such child, every such adolescent, represents the dying cries of the crucified Jesus in our times.

Excerpt from the German book: “Gott, Aids, Afrika” – B.Grill/S.Hippler – Kiepenheuer & Witsch Verlag (gebunden/ hard cover 2007 ), Bastei Luebbe (Taschenbuch/ Paperback 2009)

Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Reflection, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

08/22/2009 • 10:31 pm Comments Off on 22.08.2009 Notice of Events in September and October 2009

22.08.2009 Notice of Events in September and October 2009

For those living and working in Germany the following events might be of interest:

03.09. / 04.09.
Munich
Allerheiligen Hofkirche  20h00 African voices    Benefice Concert of the Cape Town Opera  http://www.eventin.de   –  Hotline: 01805-570000

05.09.
Nuernberg
Staatstheater   20h00 African voices    Benefice Concert of the Cape Town Opera   http://www.staatstheater-nuernberg.de

30.10.
Dresden
Kongresscentrum 14h00 Symposium:  Ithemba – Hope for African Children living with the virus (German/English)
Info: viola.klein@saxsys.de
Participants: Premier of Saxonia, Mr. Tillich, Mayor of Dresden, Mrs. Orosz, Dr. Ulrich Heide (German Aids Foundation), Rev. Fr.Stefan Hippler (HOPE Cape Town),
Jochaim Franz (be your own hero e.V.), Bob Geldorf (Aid Africa) u.a.

31.10.
Dresden
Schauspielhaus  9h00 4th HOPE Gala
http://www.hopegala.de

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Medical and Research, Politics and Society, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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