Abubakar Yakubu
15 December 2008
A non-governmental organization, Africa Vision 525 Initiative recently held an HIV/AIDS sensitization campaign at Hullumi 3 Village, FCT, in order to raise awareness about the disease as well as to support the community's wish for access to potable water.
The NGO hired the services of Dr. Andrew Zamani of the human virology unit of Gwagwalada University Teaching Hospital, to hold sessions with the residents of the community that is located more than five kilometres beyond the Durumi slum shacks in the FCT.
A press release by Okello Oculi, on behalf of the NGO, states that Dr Zamani sat with a group of 15 women and female children under a mango tree in the village and engaged them in a face-to-face interactive dialogue on the subject HIV/AIDS.
"He informed them of the millions of death from the disease all across Africa, the various ways in which victims get infected; the need for them to get tested, for couples to be faithful to one another and for people to use preventive measures," the statement read.
The statement explained further that in a separate group of men and boys, where Joshua Gabriel, a Gbyagi Pastor was involved, a heated exchange occurred between some of the men, who were under the solid influence of alcohol and claimed to have cures for the disease.
The organisation stated that a majority of the respondent demanded their right to be informed, adding that separating the women from the males allowed for uninhibited discussion within the group.
They disclosed further that the HIV/AIDS awareness sessions ended and rolled into asking both groups to prioritize their most urgent needs as a community, in which both sexes singled out lack of drinking water as their most urgent challenge.
"A representative of Africa Vision 525 Initiative offered to fund the cost of digging a well in the village; explaining that the funds were provided by the UN Millennium Campaign office in Nairobi, Kenya, as part of a worldwide campaign in supporting efforts by communities to fight the HIV/AIDS scourge by improving their sanitation," the statement added.
The organisation disclosed that on December 6, an intervention drive was made to Kuchingoro, along the Airport Road, Abuja, where 13 women gathered to acquire a practical skill that would help them increase their individual family incomes.
They explained that the soap making skill had been popularly selected by a group of women in a neighbouring village during an earlier 'Stand up' ritual.
The statement further read that Mrs Eunice Babatunde, a nurse who had run a soap-making business in the 1990's used chemicals and palm oil to demonstrate to the women the soap-making steps to be followed, which was followed by several women doing practical demonstrations of what had been learnt as well as random testing of the level of information learnt by the women.
"With seed money provided by Africa Vision 525 Initiative as micro-finance, the soap-making women 'mutual-credit' group commenced their journey into generating income through self-help enterprise," the statement read.
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