HIV/AIDS Program provides the highest level of training in Liberia

Since 1991, the Lutheran Church in Liberia (LCL) has been active in HIV/AIDS work and currently is the only church institution in Liberia training counselors to work with HIV-positive persons. The LCL provides both a rigorous counselor training workshop over a period of six months, as well as shorter awareness and education workshops for health workers, commercial sex workers, and members of the armed forces. The LCL program has trained counselors for the Ministry of Health, UN personnel in Liberia, and the National AIDS Control Program. Over the past three years, more than 100 people have completed the 6-month training program.

In addition to its highly-respected training program, the HIV/AIDS program has testing and counseling centers at several locations throughout the country. The program is beginning to work more closely with Liberians living with AIDS, jointly doing AIDS education with them as more leadership is organized among this population. They have been able to do food distribution (via World Food Program donations) to AIDS patients and have begun working with families who are doing home-based care of AIDS, providing support and training.

In 2004, a Stand With Africa grant of $10,000 enabled six of the program’s 12 staff members to travel to Botswana for a special training course that has increased the capacity of the program. Programs goals for 2005 include provide training seminars for youth and women in the country who are increasingly requesting assistance. The LCL also hopes to provide more comprehensive HIV/AIDS training for all of its own pastors and evangelists.

Requests are also coming for training from the army. According to studies, 40% of HIV/AIDS clients seeking help have some relationship to a soldier or an ex-combatant. Presently the AIDS infection rate is estimated to be between 10 and 12% in Liberia. With more refugees and internally displaced people returning home, that rate is expected to rise.

The Danish Evangelical Mission has been the principal sponsor of the HIV/AIDS program, with the ELCA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria (ELCB) providing some funding for the awareness and education activities.

2006 Update:  

Training is an essential part of program activities: to empower program staff, volunteers and beneficiaries with requisite skills and knowledge about the services offered. There were several series of training workshops locally and internationally for selected participants from religious Community, Teachers and social workers.

Training of Counselors. The Counselors Training is the care of the program as provided in the project. During 2006, the Annual Counselors Training workshops were held from February to March and August to September.  Since the establishment of the program in 2002, 147 Counselors (90 males and 57 females) have been trained.

Training in Sierra Leone: During 2006, the program received an invitation through its Consultant, Sis Karen Sorensen, to jointly facilitate a Counselors Training Workshop with PACA net in Bo City, Sierra Leone. The Anglican Diocese of Bo City hosted the workshop. That training was conducted with follow-up workshop to improve the knowledge and skills of the Counselors.

Training of Counselors for Africare.
The Program facilitated a Counselor Training workshop for Africare staff for 16 participants. This was an invitation extended by Africare to thee LCL to train their staff.

Other activities...

During the 2006, the regular activities of the Program were carried out to include PLWA skills training Education and Prevention Strategies workshops for Zoes and TBAS; Deacons, Evangelist and teachers education; the offering of awareness workshops; Volunteer Confidential Counseling and Testing (VCCT); Community Outreach, support group initiatives networking; collaboration with major stakeholders; scholarship to orphans.

At the Monrovia Center, 5,772 counseling sessions were held for clients. 2,741 persons attended pre-test counseling, 1,159 attended post-test counseling. A total of 1,200 persons consented to take the HIV test; 175 persons tested positive, many of them female.

At the Phebe Hospital center, a total of 2,666 counseling sessions were conducted. 103 persons tested positive out of 818 tests conducted. In the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Project, 2,605 counseling sessions were conducted in pre-test and post-test. Out of this amount, 1,104 persons consented to take HIV test and a total of 35 persons tested positive. Five persons died from this group because of late initiation or no access to to the ARV and long distances.

Two VCTs Centers were established in Lofa, one in Curran Hospital and the other at the Voinjama Health Center.

In the LWF project, the three centers previously established are functioning.  During the period under review, these centers conducted a total of 1,200 counseling sessions. 145 pre-test sessions, 47 post-test sessions, 8 support sessions and 53 other sessions including visitations were also carried out. 93 persons consented to HIV test of which 25 were tested positive.

The HIV/AIDS program can boast of the establishment of several HIV/AIDS community based organizations where PLWAs are breaking the silence and society is accepting them with love. The Program is grateful to our partners and other stakeholders. Before the idea of establishing the Church HIV/AIDS Program, very little was known about the disease in Liberia. Today, there has been a tremendous level of awareness and understanding about the pandemic, and the discrimination and stigma associated with it is gradually fading away.