African First Ladies target
HIV/AIDS
Accra, July 1, GNA - The Organisation of African First
Ladies (OAFLA) on Sunday held it first meeting as part
of the on-going African Union Summit, with the focus on
how to prevent HIV/AIDS.
The Steering Committee meeting which was attended by six
First Ladies and technical members deliberated on the
action plan for 2006 to 2008 to be adopted at its Fifth
General Assembly on Monday.
The action plan would champion advocacy and
implementation of the Prevention of Mother to Child
Transmission programme for the 53 member states.
The campaign on Monday’s agenda called “Save the Unborn
Child First Ladies Campaign” would be subjected to
scrutiny and open to proposals on how best to move the
campaign by the general assembly forward.
Mrs. Naureen Mwanawasa, First Lady of Zambia and
President of OAFLA, who chaired the meeting said the
cost of treating HIV/AIDS to African governments was
high hence the need to focus on prevention.
Prevention, she noted, could be spearheaded by OAFLA and
therefore called on her fellow first ladies to take a
lead role in the fight against HIV/AIDS in their
countries.
“We can work at the continental level but there is the
need for each of us to focus attention in our individual
countries to help reduce the prevalence and work toward
the time when children from age zero to 14 would be
without AIDS,” Mrs Mwanawasa said.
Mrs Theresa Kufuor, Ghana’s First Lady, in an interview
with the GNA said the main problem confronting members
of OAFLA was raising funds for their projects.
She said on country basis, they worked as NGOs and so
had to raise their individual funds for projects
targeted at women and children, which included fighting
to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
“I am fortunate that I have the Mother to Child
Foundation and therefore run OAFLA programmes alongside
though I work without a budget. I must be frank and
sincere to say that I am not good at raising funds and
so I work through the Ghana AIDS Commission,” Mrs Kufuor
said.
On the OAFLA Ghana Chapter she said she had been able to
tour the whole country supporting women with skills and
vocations as a way of empowerment.
The First Ladies who attended the meeting were from
Ghana, Zambia, Ethiopia, Cape Verde, Namibia and
Burundi.
GNA
