Sowetey (E/R), Dec. 18, GNA - The Executive Director of the Loyalty Youth Development Foundation, a community-based organization, Mr. Mensah George Anum, has called on the youth to refrain from promiscuous lifestyles in order not to contract the HIV/AIDS disease. He urged Ghanaians not to discriminate against people living with HIV/AIDS since that violated their human rights and hamper efforts at preventing its spread.

Mr. Anum said this at an inter-schools HIV/AIDS quiz competition organized for 10 Primary and Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) from the Suhum-Kroaboa-Coalter District organized by the Foundation at Sowetey, near Suhum on Wednesday.

It was on the theme "The whole earth understands, that AIDS is real and has no cure."

He appealed to school authorities, chiefs and community leaders, religious bodies and parents to allow those under them to participate in HIV/AIDS programmes to enable them to be abreast with the dangers associated with the pandemic.

Mr. Anum reminded the youth that as future leaders who constituted the productive segment of the population, they should eschew alcoholism and the use of narcotic drugs, which he noted, led to unprotected sex resulting in the contraction of the AIDS.

He suggested to those who intended to marry to undergo voluntary HIV/AIDS test to know their HIV/AIDS status to avoid contracting the dreadful disease.

Rev. Father Jacob T. Botchway, HIV/AIDS Resource Personnel and the Senior Environmental Health Officer at the St, Joseph Hospital at Koforidua, who conducted the quiz stressed the need for the youth to take abstinence seriously and to break the stigma of AIDS to enable them to live longer.

In the quiz competition, Anum Apapam Presbyterian JSS came first, followed by Anum Apapam Islamic JSS and Sowetey Purity JSS was third. Each of the schools was presented with a radio set, while all the 26 participants were also presented with book prizes. 18 Dec. 03