News / Local
New HIV organizations for Lobengula residents
13 May 2015 at 09:39hrs | Views
Lobengula residents have formed two organisations to help people living with HIV in a bid to stop stigmatisation and enable them to feel free like everybody.
This came amid people living with HIV complained over stigmatisation and rejection in the society leading them to fail accessing many needed resources.
The two organisations are the Sukumani and Focal support group which consist of 20 members each.
The Focal chairperson for ward 14 Norina Chinyama said the groups were formed after requests were made by the people living with HIV.
"Over the years there has been a lot of discrimination of people living with HIV to an extent that some relatives would not want to associate with them and even calling them derogatory names," she said.
"The purpose of these groups is to help people with HIV to do projects for themselves and be able to feed their families as well as pay school fees for them."
"As a community we are saying people should have an idea concerning the issue of HIV and that it is not a disability," she said.
She said discrimination is no longer part of these groups because as individuals they have accepted one another as a family.
"We hoping that with time the groups will continue to expand in different wards and l am appealing to the societies to help these people," she said.
She said many people are now afraid to disclose their statuses because of this stigmatisation they will be facing.
Chinyama appealed for well- wishers to assist for the projects to be a success.
Source - Byo24News