Digital Postcard from Nigeria

CEDPA's President and CEO, Yolonda Richardson, shared her thoughts with the following digital postcards as he met with CEDPA staff, alumni and partners in Nigeria (June 20-24, 2005).

Faith-Based Leaders Tackle HIV/AIDS

June 21, 2005

CEDPA has a long history working with community-based organizations, women’s groups, and faith-based organizations to implement development programs.

In Nigeria, it is believed that faith-based organizations deliver as much as 40 percent of health services. In addition, faith-based groups shape cultural norms and beliefs that greatly influence sexual behavior. As a consequence, they must invariably be engaged in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

As I read the statistics documenting the increase in prevalence of HIV/AIDS, I was reminded how quickly disease can spread in a context of denial and misinformation.

CEDPA staff members in Nigeria are working to be a part of the solution. Under the largest and most ambitious USAID-supported HIV/AIDS project ever, CEDPA elicits the support of these groups to build awareness, reduce stigma and discrimination, and engage communities in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

In Bauchi, a state unique in the fact that its population is nearly equally Muslim and Christian, religious leaders working with CEDPA have incorporated HIV/AIDS messages into their weekly sermons. Messages focus on responsible sexual behavior, including abstinence and being faithful.

Leaders also discuss the importance of care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS in order to reduce stigma and discrimination against them. This creates a willingness to promote discussion within the community to talk candidly about the disease and to urge and motivate members to find out about their HIV/AIDS status by being tested. It helps counter misinformation and widely held myths about HIV/AIDS, how it is contracted and how to prevent it.

Both Muslim and Christian leaders have been committed to inter-faith collaboration.

“HIV/AIDS does not discriminate by religion,” noted Zipporah Kpolmar, CEDPA’s Deputy Country Director.

When armed with the right information religious leaders can make a huge difference and they are being prepared to rise to the challenge.

I have faith that these leaders will be a part of the solution. For more on how to work with faith-based groups, you can order our manual, Faith Community Responses to HIV/AIDS: Integrating Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS for NGOs, FBOs & CBOs.

“Go-Slow” Slows, but Does Not Halt Progress

June 24, 2005

The distance from the airport and the center of town in Lagos is a mere 22 kilometers (13 miles).

I sat today in the car on a 2-½ hour drive from the airport to my first appointment of the day, managing just barely the immense frustration I felt at the slow pace of traffic, referred to locally as "go-slow."

I had spent the better part of the week in Abuja, the federal capital meeting with staff members, partners and donors. Signs of progress and hope are evident stand in contrast to my last visit to Nigeria several years ago. For one, there was no sign of the petty corruption that made a trip to the airport a stomach wrenching experience.

Abuja functions at a soft purr and is now firmly established as the country’s political seat. The government has drafted a comprehensive development plan and donors and multi-lateral agencies are falling in line behind it. But my trip to Lagos was a stark reminder that there remains much to do in this country, the seventh largest in the world. Lagos remains the commercial center and a place of uneasy vitality and the physical deterioration and neglected infrastructure symbolize remaining challenges.

Thus, these two cities tell the story of Nigeria’s two realities—immense political progress, but enormous social and economic challenges.

As the rain began to fall shortly before I finally arrived at the place of my first meeting, I resigned myself to an even longer return trip back to the airport.

I could rejoice for the farmers whose productivity is rain dependent, while knowing that the same rains virtually haunt progress in the city. But I settled in the feeling that progress would not be slowed indefinitely and Nigeria is moving forward.