The Network of HIV AID Positives (NETHIPS) with fund from Christian Aid last Friday trained coaches, referees, team managers and players of football on stigma reduction through calculated messages on zero discrimination to the grass root. The training took place at the conference hall of NETHIPS.
In his opening statement before the training, the Program Manager of NETHIPS, Martin Ellie said eradicating stigma and discrimination against People Living with HIV/AIDS should be a collective and all-embracing task. He said these are still a challenge to the national response. He said the training was to imbibe anti stigma education in the participants aimed at ensuring peaceful respite for people living with HIV/AIDS in order for them to live normal lives and go about their businesses freely without being stigmatized or discriminated against.
The training was developed on modules relating to: knowledge about the country’s national response mechanism, prevalence statistics; mode of transmission modes of HIV, stigma and discrimination and their impacts on people living with the virus. He expressed hope that after the training, the participants will share their individual activity plans relating to stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS. He therefore encouraged them to be attentive and participatory.
The workshop mainly targeted people associated with the game of football as a way of reaching out to a huge number of people in the grass root level.
The goal of NETHIPS is to achieve zero HIV infection, zero stigma and discrimination and zero AIDS related deaths by 2015.
By Nancy Koroma
Wednesday December 11, 2013