Hope for Orphans Organization-Luuka organized an HIV / AIDS awareness sensitization workshop which attracted over 30 participants from various communities in Luuka.

The half-day sensitization campaign was conducted at Mawembe Primary School in Luuka district and was graced by the Luuka Resident District Commissioner (RDC) Stephen Nsubuga Bewayo.

In his address to the locals, Bewayo urged them to seek voluntary HIV counseling and testing services in order to know their status while adhering to preventive tools to reverse the trend of high HIV prevalence among young people.

“I am reminding people, especially young people, that HIV/ AIDS is still a silent killer. Young people should be ahead of others in preventing new infections because if they get the infection the country loses its future,” said Bewayo.

Bewayo implored parents to always talk to their children about preventive measures against HIV/ AIDS in villages so that the scourge may be reduced in the district and Uganda at large.

“I urge people to stick to the Abstinence, Be faithful or use a Condom (ABC) method of preventing HIV,” Bewayo told the 30 participants who were mostly elderly men, women and youth.

He commended Hope for Orphans Organization-Luuka staff for organizing such a sensitization workshop about HIV adding that this was a gesture in supporting government’s goals of fighting and reducing on HIV /AIDS in the Country through the Public Private Partnerships.

Bewayo also urged people living with HIV/ AIDS to always seek or access HIV services like getting ARVs and counseling at government health centres or private hospitals in order to end the scourge among people especially adolescents.

While sensitizing people about preventive measures, Derrick Mbalya, the program officer at Uganda Network of Young People Living with HIV (UNYPLHIV) who was also a facilitator made a testimony about living with HIV in his life, a thing that moved participants and others were seen with their heads leaning onto their hands in a worried mood.

“I was born with HIV/AIDS and I got to know this when I was in Senior one after asking my father several questions including why I was swallowing a lot of tablets (ARVs),” Mbalya narrated to participants adding that students and teachers used to desert him at school after learning that he was living with the virus in his body.

He said that at a one moment he had to leave school and resorted to taking drugs and alcohol but he later received counseling from elders and re-joined school until he graduated in counseling at University.
It’s from there that he joined Uganda Network of Young People Living with HIV where he is currently the program officer.

Mbalya’s moving testimony prompted one of the participants, Ruth Basirika, a mother of eight children and beneficiary at Hope for Orphans Organization-Luuka to also take up the floor and give a testimony about her life.

She revealed to fellow participants that she went for testing years ago and the results were positive and now she is living with HIV/ AIDS including her two children whom she also tested but thanked government for availing ARVs at its health centres and that they are all on ARVs, which have made them stay longer.

Tonny Tumbya and Donald Kirya, who are both directors at Hope for Orphans Organization-Luuka, thanked participants for attending the HIV /AIDS awareness sensitization meeting in Luuka.

They said the organization will continue organizing such sensitization workshops in various communities when funds are available, in order to continue with the fight to reduce the HIV / AIDS prevalence among orphans in Luuka and Uganda at large.

In Uganda, a total of 1.4 million people are living with HIV/AIDS and 56% of the death rates are men and 44% are women. –End-