WELCOME - Caribbean Conference of Churches

In May of this year the Caribbean Conference of Churches (CCC) convened an inter-religious HIV/AIDS Policy Committee to prepare a document outlining Guidelines for Caribbean Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs) in Developing Policies and Action Plans to Deal with HIV/AIDS . Preparation of this document is a key deliverable of the project, "Building a Faith-Based Response to HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean ," which is being spearheaded by the CCC and financed by the Canadian Development Agency (CIDA).

The Committee, which has been working for the past seven months, includes broad-based inter-religious participation and multi-disciplinary Caribbean representation. The document will be presented to key Caribbean inter-religious leaders at a regional meeting in January from the 17 th -20th 2005 carded to take place in Guyana . The document is meant to provide a foundation to facilitate the development of HIV/AIDS policies and action plans by FBOs by adapting the guidelines to specific territorial situations. Towards this end, each participant will receive policy guidelines and a policy development tool kit, in addition to the Guidelines for Caribbean Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs) in Developing Policies and Action Plans to Deal with HIV/AIDS .

The CCC/CIDA collaborative effort, which will extend through 2006, targets the FBO sector in the 14 CARICOM countries. These are Antigua and Barbuda , Anguilla , Barbados , Bahamas , Belize , Dominica , Grenada , Guyana , Jamaica , St. Kitts and Nevis , St. Lucia , St. Vincent and the Grenadines , Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago .

This document will contribute to the project's overall goal which is to enable Caribbean FBOs' to strengthen their interventions against HIV/AIDS and so be effective partners in their respective national responses to the epidemic. The project aims to do this by: enhancing FBO capacity to deliver care and support at the community and home-based level for persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs); being proactive in the fight against stigma and discrimination directed at PLWHAs; and designing and implementing advocacy, education and sensitization programmes to prevent further spread of the epidemic.