Christian body promotes change in attitude to combat HIV/AIDS

Manuel Quintero, BANGKOK, Tailandia, July 16, 2004

Nearly one-third of people living with HIV and AIDs in the world today are young Taxi Heathrow Airport people aged 15-24, some 11.8 million people according to UNESCO. And this percentage is increasing. According to figures presented at the XV International Conference on AIDs, more than 50% of the 14,000 people infected each day fall into this age category. 

This situation raises specific problems for countries like El Salvador where more than half the population is under the age of 20, said representatives from some Catholic Salvadoran organizations that have launched education and prevention programs aimed at young people.

 “It is not rhetoric when we affirm that El Salvador’s present is its young people,” said Carlos Barcárcelez, coordinator of the Gente Joven (Young People) Program, an effort carried out by six Salvadoran entities sponsored by Catholic Relief Services.

Gente Joven works in four municipalities in the country and has trained a nuclear group of 120 youth leaders who are replicating their experiences and training close to 1,200 young people in issues such as sexual health, vocation and construction of peace.

 “The aim is that young people are trained, organized and that their voice and actions have an impact in all of society,” he said.

Gente Joven believes that the freshness of adolescence makes it possible to break negative cultural patterns such as machismo and gender inequality, as they are still not deeply rooted in young people’s minds and behavior.

To create other models of behavior among young people is the only realistic and lasting solution to prevent an expansion of the HIV and AIDs epidemic and to create a culture of peace, said Barcárcelez.

“Many Salvadoran young people were born in the midst of armed conflict and grew up in a climate where a culture of violence predominated. Some young people turn to gangs, called maras, in a search for entertainment but they become trapped in a cycle of violence,” he said.

This situation makes them particularly vulnerable to HIV because they turn to drugs or early sexual relations, he said.

In coherence with Catholic Church doctrine, Gente Joven promotes abstinence and fidelity as fundamental pillars of its education and prevention work.

 “A couple that practices fidelity is completely safe from contracting the disease. At the same time, we are obligated to provide information about condoms although we do not encourage their use; the decision to use condoms corresponds to each person,” he said.

Barcárcelez trusts that this initiative will lead to the creation of an HIV/AIDs  pastoral in the Salvadoran Catholic Church.

“Once we have achieved this, that will be time to seek collaboration with other Churches and Christian entities, to carry out a broad ecumenical effort,” he said.

 “I think it is possible to detain the epidemic, I think we are in time to contain its expansion and the entire community of faith should be committed to this effort,” he concluded.