Clergy Agree to Take the Lead in Eliminating Highest U.S. HIV/AIDS Rate Here- December 1, 2006
December 1, 2006
Clergy Agree to Take the Lead in Eliminating Highest U.S. HIV/AIDS Rate Here
December 1, 2006
Washington, DC—Ministers who attended a Clergy Town Meeting on HIV/AIDS last night on the eve of World AIDS Day, agreed to take the lead to eliminate the virus in the District, which has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the United States. The Clergy Meeting was the first of five town meetings entitled “A Series of Frank Conversations by Us with Us: A Self Examination on the D.C. HIV/AIDS Epidemic” that Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) is sponsoring throughout 2007 to help galvanize residents to take responsibility for eliminating this preventable disease, which is concentrated in Black America. Half the cases diagnosed today are African Americans and one-third are women, almost 70 percent of them Black. The 2007 campaign is focusing particularly on safe sex to emphasize prevention and on testing, because 25 percent of infected Americans are unaware that they are carrying the virus.
“The most gratifying and exciting aspect of last night’s Clergy Town Meeting,” Norton said, “were the specific strategies the ministers suggested and agreed to take.” Among the many ideas offered were: devoting at least part of the first Sunday in each month to some aspect of the epidemic here; a city-wide clergy testing event to help promote the District government’s universal testing for all residents; a city-wide day of prayer devoted to preventing HIV/AIDS and to assisting people living with HIV/AIDS; and activating youth ministries to reach young people (65 percent of those between 13 and 19 years of age who are infected are Black). Norton agreed to offer assistance to the clergy, working with D.C. HIV/AIDS Administrator Dr. Marsha Martin, who spoke at the meeting, and Rev. Susan Newman, head of the D.C. office of The Balm in Gilead, Inc., a national organization that works with clergy to eliminate HIV/AIDS in the African American community, who offered the invocation and benediction last night.
Norton said, “When ministers in this town take ownership of an issue, as they did in the fight for home rule in the 1970s and in the successful fight against a congressionally imposed death penalty referendum in the 1990s, things happen. Black ministers are the Black community’s anointed and natural leaders. Even more than our committed elected officials and our active gay and health communities, African American ministers reach residents of all backgrounds in our city. Residents seek the guidance of the clergy every Sunday, becoming a voluntary captive audience. Ministers routinely preach about moral issues such as abstinence for young people and faithfulness to partners, often without the results they desire. When such issues are linked to HIV/AIDS, the public is likely to understand both the moral and the health consequences.”
The meetings that follow the Clergy Town Meeting will run through 2007 and will each focus on the impact of HIV/AIDS on the city’s men, women, and teens, ending with an All-City HIV/AIDS Town Meeting to Eliminate the Epidemic. The goals of the meetings are: 1) to help residents confront basic facts about the epidemic, how it is spread, preventive measures, treatment, and recognizing that the victims are their relatives, friends, and neighbors; and 2) to leave the meetings with the beginnings of plans to continue to work systematically to find ways “to move in on HIV/AIDS and move the epidemic out,” Norton said. The Congresswoman recently asked Congressional Black Caucus members to join her in taking an easily administered mouth swab test in a D.C. health care van that she invited to the Capitol grounds. (See Norton being tested at https://www.norton.house.gov/). Her role in D.C.’s effort includes assuring that the city gets funds, the majority of which come from Congress.
December 1, 2006
Washington, DC—Ministers who attended a Clergy Town Meeting on HIV/AIDS last night on the eve of World AIDS Day, agreed to take the lead to eliminate the virus in the District, which has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the United States. The Clergy Meeting was the first of five town meetings entitled “A Series of Frank Conversations by Us with Us: A Self Examination on the D.C. HIV/AIDS Epidemic” that Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) is sponsoring throughout 2007 to help galvanize residents to take responsibility for eliminating this preventable disease, which is concentrated in Black America. Half the cases diagnosed today are African Americans and one-third are women, almost 70 percent of them Black. The 2007 campaign is focusing particularly on safe sex to emphasize prevention and on testing, because 25 percent of infected Americans are unaware that they are carrying the virus.
“The most gratifying and exciting aspect of last night’s Clergy Town Meeting,” Norton said, “were the specific strategies the ministers suggested and agreed to take.” Among the many ideas offered were: devoting at least part of the first Sunday in each month to some aspect of the epidemic here; a city-wide clergy testing event to help promote the District government’s universal testing for all residents; a city-wide day of prayer devoted to preventing HIV/AIDS and to assisting people living with HIV/AIDS; and activating youth ministries to reach young people (65 percent of those between 13 and 19 years of age who are infected are Black). Norton agreed to offer assistance to the clergy, working with D.C. HIV/AIDS Administrator Dr. Marsha Martin, who spoke at the meeting, and Rev. Susan Newman, head of the D.C. office of The Balm in Gilead, Inc., a national organization that works with clergy to eliminate HIV/AIDS in the African American community, who offered the invocation and benediction last night.
Norton said, “When ministers in this town take ownership of an issue, as they did in the fight for home rule in the 1970s and in the successful fight against a congressionally imposed death penalty referendum in the 1990s, things happen. Black ministers are the Black community’s anointed and natural leaders. Even more than our committed elected officials and our active gay and health communities, African American ministers reach residents of all backgrounds in our city. Residents seek the guidance of the clergy every Sunday, becoming a voluntary captive audience. Ministers routinely preach about moral issues such as abstinence for young people and faithfulness to partners, often without the results they desire. When such issues are linked to HIV/AIDS, the public is likely to understand both the moral and the health consequences.”
The meetings that follow the Clergy Town Meeting will run through 2007 and will each focus on the impact of HIV/AIDS on the city’s men, women, and teens, ending with an All-City HIV/AIDS Town Meeting to Eliminate the Epidemic. The goals of the meetings are: 1) to help residents confront basic facts about the epidemic, how it is spread, preventive measures, treatment, and recognizing that the victims are their relatives, friends, and neighbors; and 2) to leave the meetings with the beginnings of plans to continue to work systematically to find ways “to move in on HIV/AIDS and move the epidemic out,” Norton said. The Congresswoman recently asked Congressional Black Caucus members to join her in taking an easily administered mouth swab test in a D.C. health care van that she invited to the Capitol grounds. (See Norton being tested at https://www.norton.house.gov/). Her role in D.C.’s effort includes assuring that the city gets funds, the majority of which come from Congress.