THE annual candle lighting and remembrance ceremony at the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust (HACT) will be held on December 1, to commemorate World AIDS Day (WAD).
The ceremony will be held in the garden of HACT’s onsite 24-bed in-patient Othandweni (Place of Love) Respite and Palliative Care Unit which provides around-the-clock nursing care for admitted patients with late-stage Aids and/or cancer.
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HACT is a Hillcrest-based NGO and PBO founded in 1990 by the Hillcrest Methodist Church to respond to the HIV/Aids Epidemic. The organisation remains dedicated to saving and transforming lives through sustainable interventions, including HIV prevention and health education, healthcare, community outreach, family strengthening, skills development and economic empowerment.
Explaining what the organisation has in plan for WAD, HACT’s chief executive officer Candace Davidson-Moolman said the day for them is a time for staff and supporters to pause and reflect on the global HIV Epidemic. Also, HACT continues to plead for a response to the local context where some communities have HIV prevalence rates double that of the national average. Candles will be lit to honour and remember the 60 lives lost in the unit over the past year.
“HACT supports the WAD 2023 theme, ‘Let Communities Lead’. This message calls on communities and local organisations to shape and be involved in tailoring HIV responses to their specific needs. Communities have a right and responsibility to be enabled and supported in leading the response to HIV and Aids.
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“In the face of funding shortage and capacity shortages, we all need to ‘own’ the issue of HIV and Aids to ensure the gains over the past few decades aren’t lost, but instead, we should keep working to see the tide turn. Treatment is available for anyone living with HIV, and adherence to antiretroviral medication can help individuals live healthy and full lives.
“Adherence can also prevent ongoing transmission, which means treatment functions as prevention, as well. But seeking healthcare and staying on treatment can be complex, which is why appropriate responses tailored to the local realities are crucial.”
HACT invites the public to join in reflecting and remembering this WAD on December 1, at 26 Old Main Road, at 10:00. For more information, please contact marketing@hillaids.org.za.
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