Lucy Y. Steinitz

Making it Happen, part of the Called to Care Toolkit from Strategies for Hope, is a guide to help church congregations and groups plan and carry out HIV/AIDS-related activities. It offers information on how they can assist and support people, how they can address the broader issue of preventing the further spread of HIV, and how they can deal with the sensitive and divisive issues of stigma, shame, discrimination, and denial. The guide is designed to give a step-by-step description of processes that will enable an organisation to develop and implement a project that addresses some of the challenges related to HIV/AIDS.

Strategies for Hope is an organisation that produces and distributes books and videos that document innovative strategies of HIV/AIDS work by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community groups. The Called to Care Toolkit consists of practical, action-oriented booklets and mini-manuals on issues related to HIV/AIDS, and is designed for use by church leaders, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The purpose of the materials in the Called to Care Series is to enable pastors, priests, lay church leaders, and their congregations and communities to:

• Reflect on and understand the spiritual, theological, ethical, health, social, and practical implications of HIV and the Christian call to respond with compassion.
• Overcome the stigma, silence, discrimination, denial, fear, and inertia that inhibit church and community action to address HIV/ AIDS-related issues more effectively.
• Guide their congregations and communities through a process of learning and change, leading to practical, church-based actions to help individuals, families, and communities reduce the spread of HIV and mitigate its impact.

The first book in the series, Positive Voices, intends to enable church groups and communities to discuss HIV and AIDS, health, sexual behaviour, and issues related to religion and culture more freely and openly.

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Free to download upon registration.

English

Strategies for Hope website on June 06 2006 and February 4 2009, and email from Glen Williams to The Communication Initiative on May 23 2006.