God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

09/25/2009 • 11:30 pm Comments Off on 25.09.2009 Makwan. A letter from Paradise

25.09.2009 Makwan. A letter from Paradise

On Facebook I am part of the cause: “save the iranian gays Hamzeh and Loghman from being executed”
On the cause side one can see the youtube clip: Makwan, a letter from Paradise – which shows the hanging of a gay person in Iran and brings to live the life of a person who’s only guilt it was to love a man as a man. It is touching, shocking, moving, going to heart.  It is unbelievable that there are still countries where people are executed because of their sexual preference.  And religion is the cause for the death sentence.

I makes me aware of how powerful religion can be, that it can be a cause of life or death, a blessing or a curse for another person with a different ethical view and living condition. And it makes me so much more cautious about how I judge and talk about other people. Also in our Christian believe system is homosexuality intransic evil as I have read in one church paper. Working in the fields of HIV and AIDS, the gay issue is of course very often attached to it, specially when somebody is coming from Europe. Here in South Africa, the virus has no “gay” connotation, many women and heterosexual persons are infected. Nevertheless, when it comes to the history of the virus in the 80′, it was in the gay clubs of North America were the virus was prevalent and spread.

So sexual orientation is on the agenda again and again, when dealing with my portfolio. For me personally, I don’t think, that the sexual preference does not matter and I guess, that for God it also does not play a role – whether somebody has a good heart, develops his or her talents, is doing good, is a blessing for others – that might be rather criteria in his or her eyes. Well, I guess, even “his” or “her” means a limitation to God. But unfortunately our language needs a gender to express itself.  Having in the moment the big discussion about our South African female runner, it shows clearly how careful we should be with gender determination anyway.

Anyway, this film-clip about Makwan, yes, I would say Makwan has touched my heart and my soul this eve, and I will never ever forget what I have seen – and will be always in my mind, as a person, as a Christian, as a priest.

Filed under: Networking, Reflection, Society and living environment, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

09/23/2009 • 9:42 pm Comments Off on 23.09.2009 Doing good..

23.09.2009 Doing good..

Doing good isn’t that easy. How often do we have requests from people from overseas wanting to do something good. This means in many cases they envisage themselves helping HOPE Cape Town in some practical and personal way. This is difficult in many ways. HOPE Cape Town is not a children’s orphanage in the wild of Africa, but a professional organisation working in state institutions like primary health care facilities (also called township clinics) or Tygerberg Children’s Hospital. We simply cannot take everybody as a volunteer and this creates very often disappointment. South Africa too has rules and regulations, and very often, the question of a working visa ends the dream of doing good. But also being in the country guarantees not a volunteer post. The person must be suitable, the work must be meaningful and beneficial to the causes of HOPE Cape Town and its’ patients and clients.

So we try to balance every request and look for its merit. But even if it would fit, an organisation like HOPE Cape Town can only take a certain amount of volunteers at a time. There must be supervision and guidance. We have in the moment two volunteers at any given time from “weltwaerts” which is an initiative from the German Government to give young people a chance to discover their talents while working abroad. Add one or two more and we are already at the end of our capacity.

It is interesting to see that also elderly persons want to contribute and we see more and more requests from those, who are retired and seek for a meaningful purpose for the years after work. And as Cape Town is a prime destiny on the world map, there are months were we have to answer every day several requests. This leaves me for example sometimes a bit unhappy to deny such requests as I am sure the person on the other side of the world just want to do good. And I have to concede that wanting to do good is getting more and more difficult in our days.

So how does HOPE Cape Town choses its volunteers?
After getting an application we are looking whether the person can fund himself/herself completely and whether the skills or requirements are fitting in with the requirements of HOPE Cape Town and its actual work. If it matches and a place is available the person gets the go ahead to come and join HOPE Cape Town for a certain period of time. The volunteer will have a supervisor whom he or she reports to on a regular base.

Besides the volunteers we also have most times medical students doing an elective student programme and we more and more have also PhD students who make use of our connections into the township communities for their research. It goes without say that all is done in accordance with the regulations of the ethical committee of the University of Stellenbosch if so required.

Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, , , , , , , , , ,

09/22/2009 • 4:56 pm Comments Off on 22.09.2009 more fundamental questions…

22.09.2009 more fundamental questions…

In the last days I described my stance on mandatory testing and the pre-testing counseling. Having now more time to dedicate my energy towards the HIV/AIDS portfolio, there are more topics I feel are necessary to persue in the coming months and years. I have spoken already about the need to end the stigmatization within the health sector itself.  On the political front I can forsee to look more intensive into the question of travel freedom of people living with the virus. The ban to visit certain countries or the ban to get a work permit if you are HIV positive as you can find it in Australia, Singapore and many other countries is not only a sign of a lack of maturity of politicians in the respective countries but also a clear violation of human rights. I am aware that the UN, but also the German “AIDS Hilfe” is dealing with the issue, but we should all join hands and start to pressurize political systems allowing such violations of dignity and human rights.
In some of the blogs I mention the work with HIV positive priests and religious as well as seminarians. This is indeed a very tricky question and I hope that in October, when I am in Rom to meet together with Joachim Franz with the papal council for health care workers, to get this council on board to have a hard look how we deal with HIV and AIDS in our own ranks. Is the refusal to take a HIV positive person into e.g. monkhood or a seminary not a sign of fear and immaturity of the church? Are we as a church really allowed to deal with infected people in refusing them to follow their vocation? I am sure that God does not mind the status of a person. So we also shouldn’t mind the HIV status of a person. What kind of AIDS policies are regulating the life of the church and their institutions? Do we advocate the acceptation of people living with the virus only for the area outside the church? Tough questions, but we owe it the greater love of God to check our own balances on those questions and see whether they add up.

The ethical question of ceasing treatment if somebody does not adhere at all – also a tricky question. I mentioned the criminal law as a tool of prevention, which I find absolutely unreasonable in the way it is administered in most countries, specially also here in Africa.

Those are some of the questions in my mind, where I would like to contribute towards a solution which ends the madness of stigmatization and discrimination, which forces governments and churches to act reasonable and always upholding the dignity and human rights of every person.

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Treatment, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

09/16/2009 • 4:53 pm Comments Off on 16.09.2009 Soccer and HIV

16.09.2009 Soccer and HIV

It is an amazing time – not a year anymore to go until the Soccer World Cup 2010 and it seems that since a year the majority of NGO’s playing in the international field what to do something in South Africa – mainly connected with soccer. Countless are the requests for meetings in this regard and this morning I met again with a dear colleague of mine from HOPE Cape Town management an organisation dealing with HIV and soccer. To their credit I must say, that they are in the field a longer time and that they intend to stay beyond the point of the final of the World Cup.
But most requests deal with the question: How do I get the most exposure – it is cool to have photos with poor black kids playing soccer and XY from our NGO or organisation. Even big German trusts are not feeling ashamed to exploit the kids here for their advertising – and I say exploit because in most cases it is clear that the money will stop the day the soccer world cup is finished. The word sustainability seems not to be a known English word.

Some months ago I was sitting together with two representatives of a famous German soccer player, coming to Cape Town to investigate possibilities to do something good in this regard. Well, I made it very clear in the introductory phase of our meeting that sustainability is a major keyword for me  as we as a local entity have a responsibility towards the people concerned. And that HOPE Cape Town will not engage with people just wanting to have the shoot for 2010.  This was the end of the meeting – ” We are also such ass….” mumbled the manager of the soccer star, being one of the representatives, stood up and walked out. End of story. Good behaviour is sometimes not on the top priority list of such “important” people – and they don’t like to be unmasked or questioned. Quite an experience for me.

Todays meeting went differently and I am sure, they are full good intentions to stay longer than 2010 – young, enthusiastic and full of financial support from the American government – so they will not run dry in this regard. As we are open to networking from HOPE Cape Town we will keep in touch and see whether it is possible to create positive synergies between us with the work we are doing.

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

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