She began by urging listeners to look at her as a beneficiary, not a number or statistic. “I am here to thank Americans. I am alive because of them. I am a human face of HIV, full of hope, and that restoration of hope was made possible by Catholic Relief Services.”
    With treatment and care, Chisenga said that her quality of life has improved greatly. Her HIV virus is virtually undetectable, and she supports her family as its primary breadwinner. “I help my family and give them hope,” she said. “That’s a significant change.”
    She credits improved anti-retroviral drugs and integration of other programs, such as community based care, for helping her to “come out of the shadows and seek treatment.”

    Chisenda explained that stigmas are still associated with those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. She described the impact as being twofold, consisting of “self stigma” and “felt stigma.” Chisenga said she closed herself off to friends after she was initially diagnosed, and explained away her subsequent weight loss by saying she was on a diet. Felt stigma, she said, could include name calling, such as being called a “moving coffin.” She told the story of a friend who told her she could no longer ride in her car after she was diagnosed with the illness. “Keep your HIV to yourself,” her friend told her.
    “People are afraid to come out of their cocoon,” Chisenga stressed. “But there is life after HIV infection. At this level, we are beyond AIDS. We are HIV positive, but it doesn’t have to be a deadly disease.”

    Chisenga received her teaching credentials in 1983 from St. Charles Lwanga Teacher Training College. She has taught students in primary school and secondary school, including teaching home economics to boys.
    From 1998 to 2003, Chisenga worked as an expatriate teacher of a basic school.
She joined HIV programs in 2004 targeting high-risk populations and youth. She also did on-site and outreach work on health seeking behaviors. In addition, Chisenga promoted youth-based behavior change activities by organizing Virgin Power, Virgin Pride and Edu-sport.
    “We encourage the youth in abstinence so children avoid getting HIV,” she said. “The tide is beginning to turn. We must strengthen their support system. We need to continue.”
    In Zambia, about 16 percent of all adults are infected and the country now has an estimated 1.1 million orphans, about 10 percent of the total population.

    It is one of 15 focus countries targeted by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a U.S. government initiative authorized in 2002 that is intended to provide $15 billion of five years for treatment and prevention of HIS/AIDS.
    Two years later, in 2004, a consortium of groups led by CRS was awarded a $335 million PEPFAR grant to expand the delivery of anti-retroviral therapy to HIV-infected persons in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. The consortium, known as AIDSRelief, also includes the Catholic Medical Mission Board.

    In 2006, the AIDSRelief organization allowed CRS to provide therapy, care and support to more than 10,000 Zambians living with HIV/AIDS at 13 partner treatment facilities and mission hospitals.
    Father Juan J. Molina, OSsT, advocacy program coordinator for CRS Southwest, traveled with a delegation to Zambia in September to visit some of the projects there, supported by PEPFAR grants.
    One site he toured, Sichili Mission Hospital, has a staff of one doctor, three nuns and four nurses operating with solar power for only seven hours a day and trying to serve a district with about 30,000 people.

    In addition to the AIDSRelief Program, CRS Zambia also implements three other PEPFAR funded programs; a national home-based and palliative care project and two orphan and vulnerable children efforts.     One of these projects which was observed by Father Molina was named CHAMP-OVC, short for Community HIV/AIDS Mitigation Project for Orphans and Vulnerable Children.

    “We visited this project in the Diocese of Mongu, where we were blessed to meet not only the orphan children but also the guardians and we were able to see firsthand how these guardians give of their own self to help these vulnerable children,” he said.

    While in Mongu, his group also visited projects funded through an organization called RAPIDS, or Reaching HIV Affected People with Integrated Development and Support, which provides combined orphans and vulnerable children and home based care projects.

    This new effort directly benefits about 5,700, but almost 34,000 are indirect beneficiaries.
    “Delegation members learned about how PEPFAR is being implemented by CRS and its policy priorities regarding reauthorization, including funding priorities such as programs for orphans and vulnerable children,” said Father Molina.
    “We make sure that we help others understand that CRS also continuously advocates for adequate funding of the PEPFAR program.”

    HIV is one of the largest and most complex threats to human health the world has ever known. Great stigma compounds already tragic physical consequences. And in the developing world, poverty itself is both a cause and effect of a pandemic that is devastating the physical, social and economic health of entire regions.

    CRS initiated its first HIV and AIDS project in 1986, and now leads more than 250 projects serving more than 4 million people in 52 countries. This year, CRS will directly help more than 3.5 million people affected by the pandemic.