Sunday, March 1, 2009

Zebras4life campaign underway

GABORONE - The United States Ambassador to Botswana, Mr Stephen Nolan officially launched the new Zebras4life/ Youth Against Aids program referred to as the Heroes, which is one of Tebelopelos initiatives to encourage men to go for counseling and testing.
The key goals of this campaign are to increase awareness and empower people about HIV/AIDS and increase the number of people who test as well as to reduce stigma and create a sense of solidarity in the response to the issues of HIV/AIDS as affects the country.
Through this program, men and women who are considered by their sporting codes as national team champions were selected to advocate for prevention and behavior change as the next phase of the Zebras4life/Test4life campaign unfolds.
These young heroes will be traversing the country on the basis of the Zebras4life/ Test4life slogans as they encourage the youth and men to be in the forefront of the struggle against HIV/AIDS.
Speaking at the launch of the program, Mr Nolan said Botswana had achieved global recognition for its leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS and this excellent leadership had begun to pay off in terms of the many thousands of lives beings saved and in the reduction of the mother to child transmission rates which had dropped to under four percent as well as the rollout of the anti-retroviral therapy to more than 144 000 Batswana.
Strong governmental leadership and proactive policies are of course important elements of Botswanas success. With committed organizations such as Tebelopele, Youth Against Aids and the Zebras, I am certain Botswana will achieve the goal of Aids-free generation by 2016 and ultimately win the fight against Aids, said Mr Nolan.
Mr Nolan said that the United States committed US $300 million to Botswana over the past five years through the Presidents Emergency Plan for Aids relief (PEPFAR) to combat the deadly scourge of Aids and they are extremely pleased to support the work of Tebelopele Voluntary Counseling and Testing Centers as well as the Zebras Test for Life campaign.
To further enable Tebelopele to carry out an effective and efficient campaign, Mr Nolan handed over to the organization, equipment which included five digital and two video cameras, a projector and 50 PDAs, which would enhance the work being carried out and to allow for outreach programmes to be properly documented.For over two years, the Zebras4life/Test4life program had been encouraging men and women to know their HIV status nationwide and through the ongoing support of the US Embassy, the program enlisted over 1928 men and a total of 3386 people last year to date across Botswana through its 21 focused activities hence this brings the total number of people tested to over 7000 in over 50 events.
For the first time ever, other sports codes like softball, netball, volleyball, basketball and rugby will join football in the dedicated HIV/AIDS campaign.BOPA

No comments:

Post a Comment