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Support groups contributing to HIV infection reduction in Zimbabwe
Peter Marimi
July 19, 2006

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=11&id=3643

MAKAITA Meja says that although it is painful to live with AIDS she is empowered to live a positive life.

With a smile, she says: "I am very grateful to Auxillia Chimusoro for starting Batanai Support Group where I was taught to live positively with AIDS. Batanai also taught me to be self-reliant, now I can look after my mother and myself. I am also teaching others how to live positively with AIDS."

Meja was tested in 1998 and found out that she was already HIV positive. She was devastated and thought that she was going to die.

However, hope came her way when she joined Batanai support group and received counselling, information and support.

Now Meja can confidently declare: "Although I am HIV positive I feel like anyone else.

I am careful about what I eat and I also train others how to live positively with AIDS."

It all started in 1992 when 12 men and women came together in Harare to discuss the plight of people living with HIV and AIDS. They decided to go back home and start support groups.

This was the birth of the support group movement in Zimbabwe.

The late Auxillia Chimusoro came to Rujeko Township in Masvingo and started Batanai support group. Batanai later facilitated the formation of numerous other support groups all over Masvingo Province and brought them together to form a provincial network under the umbrella of a national network that is now called Zimbabwe National Network of People living with HIV and AIDS (ZNNP+).

Today Masvingo can boast of being the strongest provincial chapter of ZNNP+.

Today Zimbabwe is basking in the glory of being one of the few counties in the world that has recorded a dramatic reduction in HIV infections. A number of reasons for this reduction have been thrown around, but I am still to hear one that mentions any contribution from people living with HIV and AIDS.

Sadly, as usual they are looked at just as statistics.

It is my strong conviction that people living with HIV and AIDS through their support groups are contributing significantly to the dramatic reduction of HIV infections that we are witnessing in Zimbabwe. Support groups are making people living with HIV and AIDS more visible while empowering them with survival skills.

They bring HIV and AIDS into the open and in the process help to reduce stigma. The support group is a very effective awareness and prevention tool. It is most unfortunate however that we do not give enough recognition and support to the support group yet it is a powerful weapon that we can use in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

The Batanai HIV and AIDS support group, a registered PVO, fully recognises the value and importance of the support group and is in the process of turning itself into a fully fledged AIDS Service Organisation focusing on empowering support groups through programmes that include positive living, psycho-social support, treatment and care, gender, advocacy and lobbying, and youth development, all in a spirit of love and care.

* Peter Marimi is co-ordinator of the Batanai HIV & AIDS Support group.

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