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Roll back HIV/AIDS scourge in Africa –
Atukwei Okai
Accra, July 4, GNA - The Secretary-General of the Pan
African Writers Association (PAWA), Prof. Atukwei Okai, has
entreated African governments to formulate laws and policies
that would help roll back the HIV/AIDS scourge on the
continent.
To that end, he admonished African writers to expose the
weaknesses and loopholes in government policies for the
benefit of the entire continent.
“What is the use of creating artistic works for people who
are being systematically taken to their death tomorrow by
HIV/AIDS”?, he queried African writers, and challenged them
to create works that would “climb into people’s psyche and
wage a persuasive war for a regime change in their moral and
behavioural fiefdoms”.
Prof. Okai threw these challenges when the Pan Africa
Programme and Campaign Officer of Oxfam Novib, Paul van Wijk,
paid a courtesy call on him last week at PAWA House.
According to a statement issued by PAWA on Wednesday, the
courtesy call was to gain more insight into proposed visits
of African Nobel Laureates in Literature to Heads of State
in Africa, a PAWA Special Project advocating for policy and
health sector reform, as well as behavioural action change,
among others, to combat HIV/AIDS.
Briefing Mr. van Wijk and his entourage on the Writers
against HIV/AIDS project, the Secretary-General indicated
that there would be capacity building programmes for various
writers’ associations and their members to empower them
respond effectively to the challenges posed by the HIV/AIDS
pandemic.
He thus appealed to Oxfam Novib, an International
Organisation advocating for behavioural change and poverty
reduction, to make resources available to PAWA to help
ensure a successful execution of the noble project. “It’s a
question of pulling resources together to maximize the
outcome.”
Writers, according to Prof. Okai, are the “only constituency
available now to wage war against HIV/AIDS because the
resources (writers) abound in Africa”.
He added that it would be “unimaginably wicked for society
to continue to live on, while faced with such a problem and
yet fail to commandeer the resources of influence of its
prominent writers”.
He recommended that there should be a research into the
culture specific beliefs, assumptions and artifactual
practices that constrained the effectiveness of current
efforts aimed at the problem and therefore come up with
alternative approaches.
Mr Paul van Wijk commended PAWA for coming up with such an
initiative which, when executed, “according to the spirit of
the proposal, will be wonderful”.
Mr. van Wijk, who attended the 9th African Union (AU)
Summit, said it was an opportunity for him to explore and
access the different initiatives aimed at combating HIV/AIDS
by various institutions and organizations.
He urged PAWA to create linkages and expand its network in
“shaping the people of the continent”.
The media, according to him, must be used extensively to
promote and publicize the programme when it commenced.
He pledged, on his return to the Headquarters of Oxfam Novib
in The Netherlands, to brief the office and the officer in
charge of HIV/AIDS programmes on the prospects of the
proposed PAWA project.
Mr James Kamau from the Pan African Treatment Movement (PATAM)
bemoaned the lack of willpower on the part of the African
elite to make it public when their relatives got HIV/AIDS
and thus commended former South African President, Mr Nelson
Mandela, who publicly announced that his son died of
HIV/AIDS.
Mr Kamau observed that “Africa has been colonized by
HIV/AIDS” and therefore Africa must gain another
independence with immediate effect through good government
policies and behavioural change.
Mr. Christophe Zoungrana, Africa Coordinator for Global Call
to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), advised PAWA to have
“continuous and permanent linkages to discuss how to empower
people especially the youth to get out of poverty and find
remedy a for HIV/AIDS”.
He commended PAWA for its continuous quest to tell the real
African story which, he noted, would make Africans know
where they were coming from and where they should be going.
GNA
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