HIV/AIDS Counselling Centres opened in Ga District

Ngleshie-Amanfrom (G/A), Jan 22, GNA - Mr. Alfred Nortey Dua, Clinical Psychologist of the Ghana AIDS Commission, on Wednesday said counselling centres have important role to play in helping to change the attitude of people living with HIV/AIDS.

He said the success of anti-HIV/AIDS programmes depended more on people's attitude, adding that, the centres were to educate, inform and advice communities on the dangers of the disease and how it could be avoided or managed.

Mr Dua was opening three counselling centres for Ngleshie-Amanfrom, Bortianor and Teiman in the Ga District at Ngleshie-Amanfrom established by the Women Federation for World Peace (WFWP), an NGO in collaboration with the AIDS Commission.

Mr. Dua expressed the hope that the centres would not only help inform the people but reform them as well, adding that, the AIDS Commission was satisfied with the work of WFWP and urged other NGO's to emulate it.

Mr. Dua said out of the 42 million people infected worldwide, 29.9 million were from Sub-Sahara Africa, saying, this was an indication that a lot had to be done in Africa.

He said before the 1990's HIV/AIDS was said to be a foreign disease, adding that, more people were being infected now in spite of the campaign against its spread.

Mrs. Mabel Osei, Project Co-ordinator of WFWP, said the organisation was operating in the areas of prevention through Peer Education and Care and Support for People Living with HIV/AIDS in 20 communities in the District.

She said it had trained nine Chiefs, seven Opinion Leaders and 162 youth at the community level while eight Circuit Supervisors, 46 teachers and 162 pupils had been trained at the school level as peer educators.

Mrs. Osei said WFWP encountered difficulties in areas with land and chieftaincy disputes since community leaders could not rally their people.

Prophetess Elizabeth Boham, a representative of the Chief of Ngleshie-Amanfrom, said the traditional authorities, elders and parents were ready to support the project by encouraging the youth to patronise the centres.

She pledged the readiness of the Chiefs to provide land for any project that would help protect the people from the pandemic. 22 Jan. 04