Easter, a festival which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, symbolizes life and hope. Yet sickness is all around the world. Hundreds and thousands are suffering from sickness every day, and many of which have to face discriminations and live helplessly in despair. HIV/AIDS is an example.
Organized by the St John’s Cathedral HIV Education Centre (the Centre), the AIDS Festival 2009 was successfully held on April 5, at the Chater Road Pedestrian Precinct, Central, Hong Kong. 20 groups of participants from different cultures and nations including Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka etc. gathered together and took the lead to fight AIDS. The aim of AIDS Festival is to raise the awareness of AIDS among the public and ethnic minorities, and enhancing racial harmony.
The theme for this year AIDS Festival is “Stop AIDS, Keep The Promise– Lead-Empower-Deliver”. Leadership encourages leaders at all level to stop AIDS. Leadership empowers everyone, including individuals, organizations and government to lead the response to AIDS. People have offered their leadership, it’s time to deliver. Promises must be kept and people must feel empowered to act and confront HIV/AIDS through prevention, cure, support and care.
The AIDS Festival 2009 brought along a series of performances to the public, including free basic medical check-ups, booth exhibitions, dancing and fashion competitions, drama, magic show and cultural performances.
According to UNAIDS, there were 33.2 million people living with HIV in 2007; half of them were females and children. Every day, more than 5,700 die from AIDS. There are approximately 4.9 million HIV-infected patients in Asia alone. According to the statistics of Department of Health, in the fourth quarter of 2008, there are cumulative total of reported HIV infection to 4047, including 227 are non-Chinese.
Eni Lestari, Chairperson of the International Migrant Alliance expressed, migrant workers are very vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. However, instead of curing the disease and providing accessible medical care, many receiving governments impose discriminative policies against migrant workers such as mandatory testing for HIV/AIDS.
“In Hong Kong, the employment ordinance stipulates that employers to be responsible for our healthcare expenses by requiring them to purchase medical insurance for us. Unfortunately, either not many of us are aware of this or our employers do not implement it. This is not to mention the fact that the insurance provided to us usually does not cover the more severe illnesses that we oftentimes also get because of the nature of our job.” Eni continued.
St. John’s Cathedral HIV Education Center is the first faith-based organization to embrace HIV/AIDS education and prevention services in Hong Kong, and primarily provides services to women, teenagers, migrant workers and community groups. The Centre was established in 1995 in order to induce awareness to the rapid spread of HIV in Hong Kong.
In addition, the Centre combines the energies and resources with many international women’s groups, faith-based organizations and UN agencies to combat the AIDS pandemic.