Following the success of the HIV/AIDS Treatment Literacy Workshop held in January 2006, a second workshop has been organized from 13th - 18th November 2006 in Nairobi, Kenya. Participants are expected from Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Ethiopia and one French speaking country.The aim of the workshop is to equip church leaders as opinion leaders in the community and as owners of health care institutions to understand the issues around HIV/AIDS treatment and the key role they can play. The pastors, priests and other church leaders involved in their church's HIV/AIDS programme who attend the workshop are expected to commit to going back to their communities and actively using the knowledge and skills they gain.

A three-day meeting was held in Blantyre, Malawi (13th–15th March 2006) in order to return the results of the maximizing access to essential medicines baseline study (carried out by EPN in May 2005) and to look at ways forward.

The first treatment literacy workshop, which was convened in collaboration with the Ecumenical HIV/AIDS Initiative in Africa (EHAIA), was held in Nairobi, Kenya from 23rd – 27th January 2006. The objective of the workshop was to enhance the knowledge and capacity of church leaders in Africa to deal with HIV/AIDS treatment, related organizational management issues as well as the challenges of making the HIV/AIDS drugs available through the church networks.

After conducting starting points analysis research to gauge the level of understanding of church leaders and Church Health Services (CHSs) to HIV/AIDS treatment literacy, EPN recognized a need to conduct HIV/AIDS treatment literacy workshops for church leaders.

For more information on the workshops, click on the links below:

Executive summary of baseline survey research in Ghana

Research for the ‘EPN guidelines’ baseline survey was carried out in Ghana in August–October 2005. This report of results provides the baseline for compliance with the ‘EPN guidelines’ in Ghana, and respondents represent over 2,545 beds and 694,500 outpatients. It is a statistically sound report for Catholic health services in the southern and central regions of Ghana (only 8% of respondents are from northern facilities).

A feedback meeting was held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, from 17th–19th July 2005, as part of work to increase the capacity of church leaders and church-related health services to respond to the massive challenge of HIV/AIDS treatment. The results of research undertaken in Burkina Faso in June 2005 to identify starting points was fed back to a group of 45 people from churches, church health services, NGOs, and government organisations.

Executive summary of starting point analysis research in Burkina Faso

This report presents the summary of the findings and the recommendations resulting from the starting point analysis research carried out in Burkina Faso in June 2005. Work included a desk review, 10 focus groups, and 26 key informant interviews. Locations included: Ouagadougou, Bobo-Dioulasso, Koudougou, and Yako.