Kambia Makama, a remote village in the Safrokor chiefdom, has benefited from a two-day HIV/AIDS sensitization workshop organized by the Community Action Development (CAD).
CAD is an association of outgoing students at the Port Loko Teachers’ College whose aim is to develop human resource.
The workshop attracted over 350 participants including women and youths with support from the National AIDS Secretariat (NAS).
It started with a march-past and was climaxed by a friendly football match.
Mohamed Alie Kamara, CAD’s coordinator, said Kambia Makama was targeted because it was a section that hosted the Faradugu market which attracted thousands of people every other week.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mr Alie Kamara gave a brief history of the disease which was first detected in Sierra Leone in the 1987.
He spoke of the mode of transmission with special emphasis on unprotected sex as one of the ways through which the disease could be contracted. He said people should avoid casual and unprotected sex, partners to remain faithful to each other, and stressed the use of condoms, adding that his project aimed at developing human resource.
The speaker of the chiefdom, Idrissa Conteh, thanked the organizers for the initiative, noting that Mohamed Alie Kamara’s project was the first to help them fully aware of this disease.
Mr Conteh said they were very much appreciative and on behalf of his subjects promised to address the HIV/AIDS issue in his chiefdom.
The speaker used the opportunity to outline the levels of backwardness of that chiefdom in terms of health, education, and agricultural facilities.
He said his chiefdom was in dire need of these amenities, and appealed for the immediate intervention of government.
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