A GNA News Feature by James Amoh Junior
Accra, May 29, GNA – The Warm Children’s Hearts, a China-Africa Joint Action Programme, has ignited the smiles of children of the Motherly Love Orphanage at Kwabenya in the Greater Accra Region through its medical outreach.
The Children, numbering 58, including 33 girls and 25 boys, all of whom are living with HIV, were each medically screened and counselled by the China Medical Team and given medication.
The Chinese Embassy, which is spearheading the programme in Ghana, presented educational supplies, including school bags, books, pens, mathematical sets, teddies, and footballs.
The Chinese Initiative
Under the auspices of Professor Peng Liyuan, wife of President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China, the medical outreach and donation gave the children a new lease on life.
On occasion of the International Children’s Day, Professor Peng initiated the “Warm Children’s Hearts, a China-Africa Joint Action” programme with the African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS organisation.
As part of the programme, the Chinese Embassy and China Medical Team partnered with the Office of the Rebecca Foundation to show love and care to the children, who were filled with excitement.
The Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, Lu Kun, in a speech delivered by the Director of the Political Section of the Embassy, Ms Catherine Lou Danzhu, said Professor Liyuan, continued to care about the cause of women and children in Ghana and Africa, and hoped to “help the flowers of Ghana grow up healthily and happily”.
The year 2023 marks the 60th anniversary of dispatching medical teams to Africa by the Chinese Government.
The Ambassador said, in the past decades, the China medical teams in Ghana, formed by top-notch doctors in China, had provided expertise to people in need, treated countless Ghanaian patients and saved many lives.
He said, “you are ‘angels in white’, delivering health and hope to the Ghanaian people, and have become a symbol of friendship between our two countries.”
“China has been, and will always be here for the Ghanaian people, and make greater contributions to building a China-Africa community with a shared future,” Mr Lu Kun added.
Motherly Love Orphanage
Rev John Azumah, Chief Executive Office, Motherly Love Orphanage, who expressed happiness about the gesture in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the medical intervention was timely as the children whose immune system had been compromised and were on antiretroviral therapy, needed to have routine medical attention.
The Orphanage, established in 2008, envisions to give hope and a home to orphaned children who are stigmatised and rejected by family, friends, and society by no fault of theirs.
“These are children born with HIV by no fault of theirs but infected by their parents, especially their mothers. Eventually, their parents die and leave them as orphans,” he said.
Rev Azumah, also a Heart-to-Heart HIV Ambassador in Ghana, said society, which was supposed to accept them, also turned their backs on them, leaving the children stigmatised.
Stigma and discrimination
Motherly Love, he indicated, was a home where children who had been stigmatised, discriminated against, and ostracised were given reprieve and empowered through education to live normal lives.
All 58 children of the Orphanage are currently in school.
Rev Azumah said, “HIV is not a killer; it is the stigma that comes with it that kills faster. So, when you give them all the support they need, they will become healthy and contribute meaningfully to society.”
“We continue to give them empowerment, medication, feeding, education, clothing and shelter so that together we can show them love. We help them to take their antiretroviral drugs so that the very things people run away from, they will be healthy and live normal lives,” he said in an optimistic gesture.
Rev Azumah, flanked by other caregivers, and children, who were already playing with their teddies, called on benevolent individuals and organisations to support the orphanage in its efforts to support children living with HIV.
Himself a person living with HIV in the last 23 years, he said education and advocacy was not only key in preventing HIV, but fundamental in ensuring that those infected were not stigmatised or discriminated against – a situation which “kills faster than the virus”.
AIDS Commission worried about stigma
PLHIV suffered primarily due to the notion that they are capable of and do transmit the virus to others. However, advancement in science has proven that this notion is not entirely valid.
Dr Rita Owusu-Amankwah, the Director of Policy and Planning, Ghana AIDS Commission, speaking to the Ghana News Agency, said that stigmatisation and discrimination among persons living with HIV was a worrying phenomenon.
She said that in eliminating HIV, there was a need to nip stigma and discrimination in the bud through continuous education and advocacy.
Dr Owusu-Amankwah noted that at every level – community and workplace – there was a need to get rid of stigma as it was killing people rather than the virus itself.
Currently, Dr Owusu-Amankwah said, the Commission was revising the HIV Workplace Awareness Policy to better deal with stigma and discrimination at the workplace to, among others, give Persons Living with HIV a conducive environment to work devoid of stigma.
That, Dr Owusu-Amankwah, also the Advisor to Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, Ghana’s First Lady, on HIV, reiterated, would enable them to contribute meaningfully to the development of Ghana.
“The Ghana AIDS Commission is working at all fronts to ensure that this is dealt with,” she assured and urged the public to disregard myths and misconceptions that fueled stigma and discrimination.
Even more worrying, she added, was “internalized stigma” or “self-stigma” which happened when a person took in the negative ideas and stereotypes about people living with HIV and started to apply them to themselves.
That, she said, could lead to feelings of shame, fear of disclosure, isolation, and despair.
National HIV fact sheet 2019
According to the Ghana AIDS Commission estimates for 2019, a total of 342,307 persons were living with HIV with 122,321 of the number representing 36 per ent being males.
A total of 219,986 females representing 64 per cent were living with HIV while 316,352 adults (15+ years) representing 92 per cent lived with the virus.
The 58 children of the Motherly Orphanage forms part of the 25,955 children (0–14 years) representing eight per cent of the total 342,307 Persons Living with HIV as estimated in 2019 by the Ghana AIDS Commission.
In 2019, the estimated number of New HIV Infections was 20,068 with adults (15+ years) recording 17,096 representing 85 per cent.
Children (0 –14 years) recorded 2,972 new infections representing 15 per cent while youth (15 – 24 years) recorded 5,613 representing 28 per cent.
GNA