Ghana joined the rest of the world in observing World Aids Day, on December 1st. That HIV/Aids is a reality in every part of the globe can no longer be disputed. It used to be that leaders of all stripe kept mute about the disease spreading in their countries and societies because of the unspeakable stigma attached to HIV/Aids.
Thankfully, and mercifully, the silence on the disease has been broken due to people like Mr. Nelson Mandela who has turned the issue into an international crusade aimed at getting financial and medical assistance to people afflicted with HIV/Aids. He has called Aids a ‘human rights issue’, to be accorded the same diligence as the campaign that led to his own freedom from Apartheid prison. Thus Mr. Mandela has used his Roben Island prison number 46664 to underscore his campaign that those afflicted with Aids are not just a number!
Mr. Mandela’s campaign in placing HIV/Aids at the top of the public policy debate has galvanized others across the globe to assist in ensuring that the public is very well informed about the disease. Their main focus is to campaign for the availability of Aids drugs to those living with HIV/Aids; while at the same time educating the general public about measures that can be taken to avoid getting HIV/Aids.
I was fortunate to be meet a Ghanaian who has just started to put his money and efforts where his mouth is, to help in creating awareness, prevention, and cure among Ghanaians. I had a long telephone chat with him the other day, and decided to profile his efforts, not only to highlight his task; but also, in hopes that his efforts would spur others to follow his lead.
One Ghanaian who has taken the fight against HIV/Aids to heart is Nana Amo Adjepong, a Ghanaian community leader and activist who lives in the Bronx, New York, USA. Like Mandela, Nana Amo Adjepong believes the fight against HIV/Aids ought to be a year-long matter. More often than not, promises are made on World Aids Day; but once the day passes, and the photo opportunities end, good intentions disappear. It is this kind of apathy that Nana Amo Adjepong is determined to prevent. He has therefore made the fight against HIV/Aids his good fight crusade to place the issue at the forefront of the Ghanaian psyche.
To this end, Nana Amo has established the non-profit Providence Center for Humanity-International, Inc., in New York City to raise funds to help combat HIV/Aids in Ghana, and in selected communities in New York City. The foundation has offices in both New York City, and Kumasi, Ghana.
The aim is to provide HIV/Aids education to the general public using the theme, ‘Prevention is Better than Cure’! It is now general knowledge that the incidence of HIV/Aids is much higher in societies where the populace is ignorant and ill-informed about the disease, and how it is spread. Another facet of the education process involves helping to remove the stigma and mis-information attached to people living with HIV/Aids. Nana Amo Adjepong believes that removing the stigma attached to HIV/Aids, is a first step to providing an aura of community assistance to those afflicted with the disease.
Nana Amo understands that Aids is a reality, and it is therefore pointless to argue about being too liberal or conservative around the topic of sex education, when it comes to combating Aids. Therefore, the foundation vigorously supports the distribution of condoms as an integral part of the prevention campaign.
The Providence Center for Humanity also uses the ‘Case Management’ concept to help those already afflicted with HIV/Aids. This method entails assigning a Case Manager to HIV/Aids patients, who will visit the patient at least twice a week to monitor their drug intake; and keep appropriate records on the patient.
Though the foundation is at its nascent stage, and is still struggling to raise funds (as all foundations must do), to be able to function, Nana Amo Adjepong is very optimistic that he will succeed in his efforts. Nana Amo Adjepong hopes to use his employment in the New York Department of Health Services (HIV/AIDS department), to good use, in his private campaign.
Last August, in collaboration with the Organization of International Development (OID), and NGO in New York City headed by Dr. Roy Streete, Nana Amo Adjepong accompanied over 30 health care allied professionals to Ghana to provide free medical and dental services to people in the Amansie and Afighya Sekyere districts (Asante Region). The foundation distributed over 9,000 condoms; provided intensive Aids education with videos; and held lectures on abstinence, and stigma regarding HIV/Aids.
Nana Amo Adjepong assured me that with adequate resources, his campaign will be extended throughout all the regions of Ghana. Meanwhile, I suggested to him to link up with similar groups such as Wisdom Association a group made up of people with Aids in Ghana, to help increase education on HIV/Aids in Ghana.
The Catholic Church continues to oppose campaigns such as the distribution of condoms. The Vatican says that encouraging people to use condoms is immoral, and far from checking the disease, will help it spread. In fact, on World Aids day the Vatican emphasized its implacable opposition to the distribution of condoms, by issuing a five-page statement, defending its opposition to condoms and stressing the importance of “fidelity, chastity and abstinence”. One would think if ‘abstinence’ were the answer, Catholic priests all over the USA would not be held on charges of pedophilia!!!
While addressing a national Aids Day observance in Takoradi on December 1st, Alhaji Aliu Mahama reiterated the need to end the stigma and discrimination against people living with Aids, as a step to improving the ‘mental, physical and psycho-social health’ of HIV/Aids patients. Talking about sex under any circumstance is uncomfortable to most people. However, HIV/Aids can never be tackled without removing the puritancal attitude to sex education, in general.
Ghanaians like Nana Amo Adjepong want to tell it like it is, while helping to raising funds to combat what Ghana’s UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called “the genocide of a generation”. Mr Anan said that the race against HIV/Aids “is a marathon, not a sprint”. Yet it is the first-step efforts of committed people like Nana Amo Adjepong and his supporters that matter most. We must assist in their efforts by contacting them email: amoprovide@aol.com On Friday, January 30, 2004, Providence Center for Humanity, will host its 1st Annual Dinner Fund Raising Gala in the Bronx, New York. The foundation expects the following to co-chair the event: Roy Innis, a major civil rights leader and founder and national chairman of Congress of Racial Equality, Rev. Curvin Butts, Paster, Abysinnian Baptist Church, New York City, Dennis Rivera, President of 1199 local Union.
This ocassion is to be graced by Mrs Theresa Kufuor wife of the president of Ghana, Ghana's Minister of Health, Hon. Kwaku Afriyie and the Director General of Ghana's AIDS Commission, Prof. S. A. Amoa.
In the words of Nana Amo Adjepong, “I think it is about time some of us stand up and be counted”.

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