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We are failing our children with HIV care was the stark message of a joint session of the interfaith and Catholic pre-conferences being held in Durban, South Africa in advance of AIDS 2016. Targets for childcare have been missed, medication is not suitable and we still need earlier infant diagnosis with half of infants infected dying within 24 months.

More than 150 people attending the interfaith pre-conference, which opened on 16 July in Durban, heard urgent challenges to reduce stigma and discrimination; increase access to HIV services; and defend human rights as key elements of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

Representatives of faith-based organizations and communities will gather 16-17 July in Durban, South Africa for an interfaith pre-conference, “Faith on the Fast Track: Reducing Stigma and Discrimination, Increasing Access, and Defending Human Rights – NOW!”

As they talk during a workshop in Ghana, women are collectively asking a question: “Is it not time for women and girls to raise their voices to say what they want as mothers, as widows, as single parents, and as God’s children?”

Churches are engaged at the grassroots level throughout the world in the response to HIV and AIDS, but the struggle against the disease and those stigmatized for being HIV positive needs to continue, say church leaders.

Getting more people tested and treated for HIV, caring for the sick, helping people understand how to care for themselves —these are the tasks of faith-based organizations (FBOs) helping people with HIV in local communities.

As a United Nations high-level meeting on ending AIDS led to the adoption of a new political declaration to fast-track progress toward combating HIV and AIDS, the faith community responded, both with words of commendation and a call for changes.

A workshop in Tanzania created a “safe space” in which adolescents, church leaders, theologians, development practitioners and others could share their feelings and ideas about HIV response.

Faith-based organizations presented significant input at a 6 April United Nations civil society hearing in New York City, a prelude to a UN High Level Meeting on HIV in New York on 8-10 June.

As participants in a workshop on HIV offered their personal reflections, they shared how their hearts have been deepened and changed by a dialogue facilitated by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP).

“I came here to know the difference between HIV and AIDS, and to distinguish the role of women, especially women pastors, in educating, empowering, and enlightening people in her flock about their view on HIV,” said Rev. Mary Ann Kadile, a pastor from the United Church of Christ in the Philippines. She traveled from Mindanao to San Pablo City, Laguna to participate in a workshop on HIV led by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines.

Sexual and reproductive health services must be not just "youth-friendly" but also “male- and female-friendly" and "youth participatory" so that young men and women gain access to the information and services they need and want, agreed adolescents who attended a workshop in Lomé, Togo on 24-25 March.

As summer approaches, the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (WCC-EAA) is now in full preparation for the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016), hosted in Durban 18-22 July 2016.

Preventing HIV, particularly among adolescents and youth, was the focus of a two-day meeting for 25 Sunday school teachers and chaplains from the Methodist Church of Togo, Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Togo, Assemblies of God, Baptist Convention and Pentecostal Church.

The World Council of Churches-Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance welcomes an agreement between the Medicines Patent Pool, the Government of South Africa and Abbvie, a research-based biopharmaceutical company, to work together to overcome supply challenges relating to second-line HIV and AIDS treatments lopinavir and ritonavir (LPV/r) in South Africa.

How do parents disclose to their children that they are HIV positive? That is the challenge a participant at a recent consultation on 25-27 November on HIV and adolescents in Limuru, Kenya, faced for years. The middle-aged woman, who probably contracted HIV when it first emerged in Zambia, talked about just how difficult it was for her to disclose her serostatus to her children.

“Disability does not mean inability! Human rights for all! Equality and access to good health care! Leave no one behind!” Slogans were plentiful at the 18th International Conference on AIDS and STIs. Some participants felt that the conference venue sadly belied these clarion calls as it was ill-equipped to handle the mobility and access needs of persons with disabilities.

When 505 percent more girls than boys get infected with HIV, the virus that is in its fourth decade can, indeed, be said to wear a woman’s face.

“Stigma, discrimination, lack of access to information and appropriate prevention measures aggravate the spread of HIV and AIDS,” says Samuel Matsikure, who participated in a dialogue sponsored by Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiatives and Advocacy of the WCC.

Economic empowerment and a thriving positive engagement in community life for women affected by HIV and AIDS was the focus of a training sponsored by the Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiatives and Advocacy of the WCC in Harare, Zimbabwe.