Nyaruguru district: A flashback in the fight against HIV/AIDS and way forward

40 health officials in Nyaruguru district, Southern Rwanda, on Thursday met with local partners in the fight against HIV/AIDS to review activities carried out in the elapsed 2011-2012 fiscal year and decide the way forward in the upcoming 2012-2013 fiscal year.

Among other achievements registered over the past year of action, comes the fact that male HIV contamination across Nyaruguru district has hit a record prevalence decrease of 0.5 compared to the rest of Rwanda, according to Aimable Nsanzabaganwa, technical assistant of Nyaruguru district’s commission for the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Part of the district partners in the fight against HIV/AIDS include the Global Fund and the Forum for Activists against HIV/AIDS Scourge (FAAS). The former has been involved in distributing school equipments like notebooks, rulers, pens and school fees to needy primary and secondary school students across Nyaruguru and plans to keep doing so throughout the upcoming 2012-2012 fiscal year, while the latter, FAAS so to say, has been giving workshop trainings to community health workers, mobilization on family planning and on male circumcision.

Both Global Fund and FAAS representatives, hand in hand with the district health officials, pledged to continue fighting against some relatively small pockets of stigmatization that still suffer people living with HIV/AIDS across Nyaruguru district. They hope to achieve that through more mobilization of the population for behavioral change.

Officiating at the function, Angélique Nireberaho, Nyaruguru district deputy mayor in charge of social affairs, commended various partners for their work to roll back HIV/AIDS.

“I thank all of you whose tangible actions have kept giving people living with HIV/AIDS hope for sustainable life”, Nireberaho told a gathering in Nyaruguru district conference hall.

Deputy Mayor Nireberaho further challenged partners to keep empowering beneficiaries of their actions – Nyaruguru residents – so that they can be able to feed themselves in a sustainable way, even should these NGOs close door.

Incoming search terms:

• fight against aids