U.S. Announces Grants in AIDS Program

Programme Review and Programme Direction

Two key deliberative sessions during the 15th CCA General Assembly are the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions.

The Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions will both be conducted in three groups relating to the CCA’s programme areas, namely, (i) General Secretariat (GS), (ii) Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF); and (iii) Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia (PD).

Assembly participants will have the option to join one of three groups for both the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions. For the sake of coherence, the assigned group will remain the same for both sessions.

General Secretariat

The General Secretariat oversees the coordination of programmatic, administrative, and financial activities of the organization. The GS comprises various departments such as church and ecumenical relations, relations with ecumenical partners, finance, administration, and communications, which provide crucial support and services for the implementation of programs and contribute to the overall functioning of the CCA.

Programmes: Relations with member churches and councils, ecumenical partners; advocacy at the United Nations; ecumenical responses to emerging issues in solidarity; income development and finance; and communications.

Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF)

Under the MU programme area, the CCA accompanies Asian churches to strengthen their mission and witness in multi-religious contexts, revitalise and nurture church unity and the Asian ecumenical movement, and develop contextual theological foundations.

Programmes: Asian Movement for Christian Unity (AMCU); Congress of Asian Theologians (CATS); Asian women doing theology in the context of wider ecumenism; contextualisation of theology in Asia and ecumenical theological education.

The EF programme area focuses on nurturing and developing ecumenical leaders in Asia. The programme aims to enhance spiritual formation and theological understanding, enabling people to actively engage in ecumenical dialogue and collaboration.

Programmes: Ecumenical Enablers’ Training in Asia (EETA); Asian Ecumenical Institute (AEI); Youth and Women Leadership Development; Ecumenical Spirituality and Nurturing of Contextual Liturgical Traditions; Asia Sunday

Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia and Advocacy (PD)

The BP programme area is dedicated to promoting peace, justice, and reconciliation in Asia’s diverse contexts. Through training, advocacy, and dialogue, the programme addresses the root causes of conflicts, empowers communities, and fosters sustainable peacebuilding initiatives.

Programmes: Pastoral Solidarity Visits; Churches in Action for Moving Beyond Conflict and Resolution; Young Ambassadors of Peace in Asia (YAPA); Ecumenical Women’s Action Against Violence (EWAAV); Eco-Justice for Sustainable Peace in the Oikos.

The PD programme area focuses on promoting justice, human rights, and social transformation in Asia. Through advocacy, capacity-building, and raising awareness, the programme addresses systemic injustice, empowers marginalised communities, and advocates for prophetic actions and meaningful change.

Programmes: Human Rights advocacy; Migration, Statelessness, and Trafficking in Persons; Asian Ecumenical Disability Advocacy Network; Asian Advocacy Network on the Dignity and Rights of Children (AANDRoC); Ecumenical Solidarity Accompaniment and Diakonia in Asia (ESADA); Health and Healing; Good Governance; Action Together to Combat HIV and AIDS in Asia (ATCHAA).

First Preference:
Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF)
Second Preference:
Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia and Advocacy (PD)
26 February 2004
christian conference of Asia, Asia christianity

Pretoria:The United States launched President George W. Bush’s global AIDS program by awarding multimillion-dollar grants to four U.S. - based institutions to treat those suffering from the deadly virus in three African nations.

One of the grants, a $107-million donation to Harvard’s School of Public Health, is the largest received by the school, easily surpassing a $25 million grant in 2000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in Nigeria.

The grants announced Monday total $350 million and are the first installments of Bush’s $15 billion, five-year plan to fight AIDS. The initiative aims to dramatically increase the number of poor people being treated on the life-extending antiretroviral medicines.

Now, anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa are being treated; the precise number is difficult to pin down, mirroring the trouble estimating how many are infected with HIV or have died from AIDS.

The Harvard plan aims in five years to roughly double the number of people being treated in sub-Saharan Africa. Its goal is to put an additional 75,000 people on antiretroviral drugs in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Botswana.

The other programs will be run by Catholic Relief Services, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, and will focus on AIDS treatment and the prevention of the transmission of HIV from mother to child.

Bush first announced the initiative in his State of the Union address more than a year ago.

Source: The Asahi Shimbun
Wednesday, February 25, 2004