The Ghana Gender Centre Project has in collaboration with two local NGOs in Nkoranza South and North Districts organised a three-day workshop to sensitize 70 local peer educators on
socio-cultural practices fuelling the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The two local NGOs are Ahenbronoso Care Foundation at Nkoranza and Mission of Hope Society at Busunya, capital of Nkoranza North district.
Sponsored by the Ghana AIDS Commission, the workshop was part of the Multi-Sectoral HIV/AIDS Programme (MSHAP) for the year 2010-2011.
Topics treated included: "Violence and Domestic Violence Act", "Reproduction Health Rights and Rights of People Living with HIV/AIDS", "Qualities, Roles and Responsibilities of Peer Educators", "Safer Sexual Practices", and "Cause of Sexually Transmitted Diseases".
Others were: "Reproductive Health and Family Planning Practices", "Counseling and Testing Methods of HIV/AIDS", "Importance of Abstinence,
Faithfulness and Condom Use", "Practices against Contracting HIV/AIDS" and "The Effects of Discrimination and Stigmatization against HIV/AIDS victims".
Ms. Margaret Brew-Ward, Programme Manager of Gender Centre, announced that a research conducted by the Centre revealed that the rate of HIV/AIDS infection among women was higher than men.
The research identified socio-cultural practices such as widowhood inheritance, women's acceptance of promiscuity in marriage, domestic
violence and sex as women's marital obligation as contributory factors to women being more vulnerable to contracting the pandemic, she said.
The programme manager called on the peer educators to share the knowledge they had acquired at the workshop with others to appreciate the negative practices helps in the spread of infection to save lives.
Madam Esther Darko-Mensah, also of Gender Centre, said they had envisaged to educate about 24,490 out-of-school youth on HIV/AIDS preventive
messages.
She said the Centre hoped to distribute over 244,898 condoms to the public and that about 4,898 people would be encouraged to receive
counselling and testing from the various voluntary and counselling centres and the hospitals.
Madam Darko-Mensah stressed the need for stakeholders as religious leaders, traditional rulers, teachers and Assembly Members to educate the people on the dangers of HIV/AIDS.
Mr. David Boamah-Asumadu, Co-Executive Director of the Ahenbronoso Care Foundation, disclosed that it was the mission of the organisation to organize activities to promote the health needs of the people to protect them against diseases.
Mr. Godwin Gyasi, Programmes Manager and Evaluation Co-ordinator of the Mission Hope Society, said HIV/AIDS education was not the responsibility of only the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and called on all and sundry to help in
the campaign against the spread of the pandemic.