God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

03/22/2010 • 11:32 am Comments Off on 22.03.2010 Human Rights Day

22.03.2010 Human Rights Day

Yesterday we celebrated Human Rights Day – and today, thanks to South African law, we can enjoy a day off as this important day felt on a Sunday and consequently the Monday is a day-off. I like this law very much so.. 🙂

Human Rights Day is important, specially for a nation which must leave up to a constitution which is one of the most progressive in the world. But obviously the realities are in fact always different from the ideal of a constitution. Whether it is crime or HIV, whether we look onto our streets with all these horrible accidents killing hundreds of people every year – be it drunk-drive, driving without driver license or with a not roadworthy vehicle, the taxi industry like the Italian Mafia trying to enforce their might and power with strikes and AK 47’s – land reform or better the not even started land reform, the relationship between Xhosa’s and Zulu’s and others – our commitment to Human Rights are tested every day in South Africa and we fail too often.

I have the feeling that the Soccer World Cup 2010 has put at least a stop on it in the sense, that we haven’t fallen deeper in failing the Human Rights test. Alone for this fact, all efforts to support the World Cup have been a great success. But we have also now to look what will come after the 11.07.2010 when the political gloves are gone again and we specially in the Western Cape will experience the sort of political wrangle which influences the lives of the ordinary people and does not bring any good for the inhabitants.

Let’s hope that the positive push, we will experience from now on till the end of the tournament will produce a positive energy.

When I read the new national plan regarding HIV and AIDS; there is a turnaround which is magnificent. It shows that an energy was created to face the realities and to find ways to overcome it. It would be another South African miracle if we could follow through in the years to come and so transform South Africa from the champion of new infections to the champion in defeating the pandemic. A great dream, lets live it and work for it. HOPE Cape Town will definitely assist where ever we can.

Filed under: HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Reflection, Society and living environment, , , , , , ,

03/05/2010 • 3:22 am Comments Off on 05.03.2010 Just some bits..

05.03.2010 Just some bits..

Today was quite a day.. in the morning it took me two hours to get a number within the headquarters of TELKOM to report my grievance. There is still – after 8 days – no progress on re-establishing the ADSL line. The PA of the person in charge promised to phone me back.. well, maybe tomorrow…

Caught by police having a cellphone in the hand… the fine is 500 Rand. But as it is almost usual in South Africa I got away with donating towards some chicken wings for the hungry police.. – much cheaper than the fine…

I had to go to a dentist – and landed in Fourways at a dental clinic. The dentist spoke an excellent German – he was from Namibia and as far as I could see and feel, he did an excellent job. After finishing – the dentist said: “We all belive in one God” – and scraped the payment.  What a nice surprise..

Talk with Archbishop Buthi about our POZ initiative regarding HIV positive priests and clergy. Once again after the nuncio and Archbishop Steven in Cape Town a positive talk and sometimes I really feel home in my church, because there is a basic understanding for the care of people, even if theological positions seems to be far away. But the pastoral care is a level, where we all can meet and stand our grounds.

In the evening visiting friends – why are so many robots out-of-order in Johannesburg?? To drive 2 km in 1 hour can make one very nervous. On the way back seen a very bad accident – the motorcyclist was still treated on the road.. May God be with him and may he survive – the bike certainly did not…

These are only some of the bits and pieces of today – small stories but also needed to be told…

Filed under: Reflection, , , , , , ,

02/20/2010 • 10:17 pm Comments Off on 20.02.2010 Time is flying

20.02.2010 Time is flying

Saturday again – time is indeed flying and who says, that time is passing quicker when one gets older: that is correct. The time, I have felt in the earlier time for days, are now easy covering a months.
Yesterday I had my first meeting with the new Archbishop of Cape Town and we discussed some matters, amongst others the initiative of pastoral work for HIV positive priests and religious in our church. I hope to see in the next three weeks the chairperson of the Southern African Bishops Conference on this issue to move forward and to be able to report back in May, when I am in Rome.
HOPE Cape Town needed this week also some attention, sometimes there are times of multiple decision-making processes at the same time which binds all energies and needs lots of focus. At the same time I had to finalize the first planing of my next travels, which will bring me to Gauteng end of the month for two weeks, then in May to Italy and Germany and in July to Austria and Germany. In between a short break in SE Asia.

And when I thought that I don’t have to work during Holy week and on Easter – since Thursday I know that I will be busy and helping out on all those holy days. That will be the first time to celebrate all these mysteries in English; well as long as I don’t have to sing in English, I will survive. 🙂

It was a busy week and today I digged me into reading the white paper of renewal energy of the Western Cape to get a grip also on this topic. All the acronyms are a bit strange to me, but the material itself is not that difficult as I thought. Tomorrow then 2 church services which I will now prepare.

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

02/18/2010 • 10:43 pm 1

18.02.2010 office work and good news

Today is mainly an office work day – so many things are waiting to be finalised. In the morning still sitting together with a colleague of mine and exchanging ideas. In the afternoon reading some emails I discover that the South-African Government has agreed to change their guidelines for HIV treatment and that now the 350 mark of the CD4 count is significant for the begin of the treatment. This is indeed good news . I have my little doubts whether the implementation will be smoothly and were the money is coming for all those now eligible for treatment, but we will see.

Another good news is the insight, the local minister of health of the Western Cape gave in saying that there is a good understanding between the Western Cape and the national government in health issues. No jealousy or there like. Also good to hear and my prayers are, that this will last longer than the world cup 2010 is in town.
All steps in the right direction and if correct implemented, we will see many South African being able to contribute to the countries well-being instead of dying to early.

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, Politics and Society, Reflection, , , , , , ,

02/16/2010 • 9:56 pm Comments Off on 16.02.2010 POZ and CAN

16.02.2010 POZ and CAN

A whole series of meetings today, amongst others one with our working group looking into the pastoral care for HIV positive priests and religious. We discuss the way forward and how important it is to back up our pastoral efforts with a proper theological and psychological consideration. Obviously it is compassion driving us, but is this enough? When we want to engage bishops and convince them to support us, it would be good for us to have done our homework. Obviously we also have to look at the scale of what we can do and how we approach it. A very constructive meeting and surely a big step forward.

Afterwards meeting with the Catholic Aids Network in Welcome Estate. We are still waiting for our constitution as requested by the National Catholic Aids office and we discussed in length the way forward. The topic HIV and AIDS has indeed changed in the last years and for many church groups and initiatives, it is one aspect of their work amongst others. This is different from when CAN started, where the support groups were partly marginalised and worked very isolated, thus needing much more networking and moral support. We also aim to have a service around World Aids Day, not only as a memorial service for those, who have died already, but also as a sign of encouragement for those, who are still working in this field. And I am convinced we have not reached yet the peak – the PEFPAR funding is going to get less, and we still have to catch up for quite some wasted years here in South Africa; the adherence will be a topic and a problem in the years to come. Whoever thinks, that HIV and AIDS is dealt with – I think the opposite. We still have a way to go – and if we not take care of this way, we will have to pay a costly price.  Between political declarations of intent and reality is here in South Africa still a big gap ( I guess not only in South Africa)…

HOPE Cape Town, Catholic AIDS Network, the poz initiative for HIV positive priests and clergy  and all the other local initiatives will be needed still for a long time…

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

Blog Categories

Follow God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE on WordPress.com

You can share this blog in many ways..

Bookmark and Share

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,711 other subscribers

Translation – Deutsch? Française? Espanol? …

The translation button is located on each single blog page, Copy the text, click the button and paste it for instant translation:
Website Translation Widget

or for the translation of the front page:

* Click for Translation

Copyright

© Rev Fr Stefan Hippler and HIV, AIDS and HOPE.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rev Fr Stefan Hippler and HIV, AIDS and HOPE with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

This not withstanding the following applies:
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.