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People of faith and representatives of faith-based organizations demonstrated their commitment to meet the “Fast Track” challenges to end the AIDS epidemic at the 21st International AIDS Conference in Durban, 18-22 July. Extensive coverage of faith-based participation is available via www.iacfaith.org. Articles, video and photos will continue to be added.

Prince Harry, Elton John, Charlize Theron, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, Bill Gates – royalty, celebrities, religious leaders and philanthropists joined scientists, politicians, health workers, and activists – all of whom include people of faith – at the 21st International AIDS Conference in Durban. At a time when “AIDS fatigue” deepens, affecting funding, awareness and capacity to respond, the stars help to put a media spotlight on the many challenges and injustices that remain.

In a final session at the faith-based pre-conference on HIV and AIDS, faith communities re-committed themselves to ending HIV and AIDS, and to keeping up the pressure in the face of “AIDS fatigue.” In a stirring speech, Rev. Phumzile Mabizela, executive director of INERELA+ said, “We must continue in the fast lane. We cannot return to the slow lane or go slow in the fast lane.”

“Prophet, people and a plan.” That’s what faith-based organizations (FBOs) need to ensure nobody living with HIV is left behind, said Jesse Milan, past board chair of the Black AIDS Institute. He was speaking as part of a panel group at the Faith on the Fast Track AIDS2016 Pre-Conference.

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.

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.

The World Council of Churches Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance is taking registrations and workshop proposals for “Faith on the Fast Track,” an interfaith pre-conference scheduled for 16-17 July in Durban, South Africa.

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.

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.

“Ecclesiology and Ethics in Africa” is the theme of the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, the quarterly journal of the World Council of Churches (WCC). The content includes principal presentations made at a June 2015 conference on Ecclesiology and Ethics: the State of Ecumenical Theology in Africa, held at the University of Western Cape in South Africa.

“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.

Prayers and action undertaken by the Liberian Council of Churches during the Ebola outbreak of 2014-2015 will be honoured by the Liberian government with distinction of “Commander, Order of the Star of Africa”.