Under the Baobab Tree: African Diaspora Networking Zone #AIDS2014

Also known as 'The Tree of Life', the Baobab tree is found in 32 countries across Africa as well as in Australia and is an enduring symbol of positivity and growth, thriving in conditions where little can survive.

The African diaspora is even more widespread, as people of recent and remote African descent have settled in every region of the globe to create vibrant communities in the face of individual and collective challenges – including HIV/AIDS, which disproportionately affects Black and African diaspora populations.

This year’s African networking zone is being organised by the Multicultural Health and Support Service (MHSS) in collaboration with the African Black Diaspora Global Networkon HIV/AIDS (ABDGN) and AFAO’s African Reference Group.

To find out more about the zone, AFAO spoke to the ABDGN’s Kwaku Adomako.

What's faith got to do with it?

Lina Ayoubi, from the Islamic Council of Victoria, was one of the
speakers at a recent Melbourne forum for religious leaders.
Photo: Dan Walls, courtesy of the Multicultural Health
and Support Service (MHSS).  

For people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, quite a lot.

Hand in Hand, a forum on HIV for religious leaders in Melbourne on 11 March heard that for many people with HIV from CALD communities, spiritual faith is central to their lives, but the stigma associated with HIV, and silence from church, mosque and temple, can lead to isolation and distress.  

Speakers representing several peak religious bodies in Victoria expressed concern about this isolation and stigmatisation, and discussed how the core principles of their faiths could – and should – inform both care and support for people with HIV, and community-based HIV prevention and awareness programs.

Over forty people attended the forum, which addressed the role of spiritual and community leaders in preventing HIV transmission in migrant and refugee communities. Hand in Hand was organised by the Multicultural Health and Support Service (MHSS), a program of the Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health in Victoria. It was the third in a series of cross-sectoral Multicultural Sexual Health Network (MHSN) forums on BBV/STI prevention issues for CALD communities.