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Education
change behavior
The Need | LifeRise Strategy | ABC Prevention | Prevention in High-Risk Groups
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Knowledge of the truth and the power to act go together. LifeRise AIDS Resources prevents HIV/AIDS by providing knowledge through education and by enabling people to act on the truth they gain to make healthy choices. In short, our approach is to educate and empower.
The Need
Jesus was Full of Truth
Jesus was “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). These two qualities of Jesus are central to HIV/AIDS intervention. Those who are at risk for HIV need to hear Christ’s truth for prevention through proven principles such as abstinence until marriage and faithfulness in marriage. Those already infected with HIV are desperate for the grace of Jesus – His compassionate care, healing touch, and transforming hope.
Need for the Truth about HIV/AIDS
People are suffering and dying from HIV/AIDS for lack of the truth. Those vulnerable to HIV infection need to be apprized that this sickness means a long journey ahead that may be filled with sorrow for themselves and their loved ones.
Those at risk need to understand that infection will take a physical and emotional toll. Marriages may break up. Unborn children may become infected. Young children may be left alone when parents die. Women who engage in prostitution trade lifelong health for temporary gain. Drug users who introduce HIV through shared needles increase the heartbreak of their already destructive lifestyles.
Truth about Methods of Protection
People need to hear the truth about alternatives to abstinence and faithfulness promoted as means of protection. They need accurate information that condoms are only 80 to 90% effective when used correctly and consistently; when not used in these ways, it is the same as there being no protection at all. Women need to understand that promised microbicides are not yet on the market and those that have been tested in laboratory trials have increased HIV transmission. Men need to hear that circumcision is at best 60% effective, and a false sense of security and disinhibition may reverse any protection. Those seeking treatment for another sexually transmitted infection in order to prevent HIV need to understand that it may already be too late.
Truth about Treatment
Those who no longer fear HIV because treatment is available need to understand that although treatment is life-saving, it requires 95% lifelong adherence and may have side effects and long-term complications. Serious illnesses accompanying AIDS may not be reversible with treatment.
Truth about God’s Plan
Most of all, people need to hear the truth spoken in love about God’s design for marriage and family and His principles of healthy relationships. They need to understand that the Lord has a preferred future for them than the tragedy of AIDS.
LifeRise Strategy
At LifeRise AIDS Resources, we feel a burden of responsibility as those who understand the long-term ramifications of AIDS to advise those who are vulnerable and help them to do all they can to prevent this disease. LifeRise prevention projects focus on transmission through sexual relations and injecting drug use.
Educate and Empower
LifeRise prevention projects educate by speaking the truth in love and empower people to act on what they hear. We educate and empower people to make healthy choices. This strategy may also be called behavior change communication.
Empowerment may be at an individual level, or at aggregate or community levels such as family, peer or gender group, church, or community. Examples of individual level empowerment may be providing an opportunity to sign an abstinence covenant or to obtain premarital HIV testing. Community level empowerment may be a youth club in a church, creation of women’s job opportunities, and legal protections surrounding disclosure of HIV-positive status. Community empowerment, such as a leadership movement of pastors and churches, will help to change social norms of behavior.
LifeRise will also offer the transformation of Christ and empowerment of the Holy Spirit to help people to make beneficial choices.
Prevention of Sexual Transmission in Generalized Epidemics
ABC Approach
Generalized epidemics are those such as in African countries where HIV prevalence exceeds 1% in the general population. In these populations, HIV infection has expanded beyond high-risk groups. LifeRise AIDS Resources subscribes to the ABC approach to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV in generalized epidemics -- Abstinence, Be Faithful, and Correct and Consistent Use of Condoms. As Christians, LifeRise interprets ABC to mean abstinence until marriage for youth or choosing secondary abstinence, mutual faithfulness in marriage with an uninfected partner, and the use of condoms when necessary, such as in discordant marriages where one spouse is HIV-positive and the other is negative. From a public health perspective, abstinence may also include delay of sexual debut; faithfulness may also include reduction in the number of partners.
Prevention of Transmission in High-Risk Groups
Overarching Goal of Risk Elimination
LifeRise AIDS Resources projects will reach out to those at high risk of HIV infection, such as prostitutes (also called commercial sex workers or CSWs) and injecting drug users. We believe in the ultimate good of risk elimination and will help those who desire to break free from these lifestyles to begin new lives. However, because we also value a compassionate response, we see a role for temporizing measures to reduce harm such as condoms and limited needle exchange (as part of educational outreach). Therefore, we will consider projects that incorporate risk reduction, although primary behavior change will always be our overarching goal.
Prostitution
LifeRise believes that prostitution and sexual trafficking demean and enslave women. In His ministry, Jesus valued women and elevated their status. Following Christ’s example, LifeRise will support projects that prevent sexual exploitation for women, as well as projects that rescue women and empower them to escape from the harm of prostitution. We will also consider projects that support women in their transition, such as night-time day care centers for children.
Injecting Drug Use
LifeRise believes that controlling substances rob an individual of personal freedom and a sound mind. Injecting drug use, especially with shared needles, poses an immediate threat of HIV transmission. Use of any controlling substances, including drugs and alcohol, leads to impaired judgment which often results in high-risk sexual behavior. For these reasons, LifeRise will support prevention and rehabilitation projects for injecting drug users related to HIV.
