Recovery of Health and Social Re-joining of People with AIDS

We, people with a Social Conscience and a Selfless Spirit, daily face the challenge to “faithfully prove” that fraternity is possible where solidarity and humanity don’t exit. We have to create an awareness of the “basic injustice” that divides humanity into rich and poor, and in that sense, we have been able to have a say, not only about reporting something wrong, but also telling about help and protection of those who are victims of this system.

Our project cannot and must not be only a project for the spiritual salvation of excluded people who are invited to participate in this project. It must also have and propose clear objectives of personal, as well as social development in our country, that include the reduction of poverty and marginality starting from the acknowledgement of the excluded people as a “synthesis of the creation.” The re-dignifying of those whose dignity has been taken away due to the fact of being “different” or living against “culture.” It is our DUTY too.

Exposed to endless discriminatory practices based on prejudice or ignorance, people who live inside the rules and in a socially conventional fashion, people with AIDS and Tuberculosis totally lack the support from the governments and society for their physical and social recovery. It is towards them that we have to direct our actions and help, with the message that there is a God, a merciful Father Who accompanies, with all His love and providence, every single one of His children.

In the case of HIV/AIDS, since its appearance in 1983, more than 17,000 cases of AIDS and nearly 24,000 cases of HIV infections have been reported as of November 2005. It is calculated, based on conservative calculus, that nearly 100,000 people might have HIV (90% of who might not be aware of their health condition). However, 0% of this population might have access to a complete human service, meaning prevention, atención médica hospitalaria y ambulatoria, medicines and tests for a diagnose, programs for food and social support. Government help is focused on medical treatment, though it doesn’t at all cover food support or help for a social re-insertion.

Regarding Tuberculosis, Peru reports 25% of the cases in all of Latin America, and its density is approximately of 243 cases for every 100,000 inhabitants, elements of central vulnerability towards Tuberculosis are: el hacinamiento and lack of urbanized places, and proper housing situations, lifestyles as alcoholism, drug addiction and precariedad, factors that are found most frequently in certain areas of Lima city and Human Settlements. Tuberculosis is also the second cause of death in hospitals in people with AIDS.

Is this context, it is necessary to create models of companionship to the people excluded for the previously mentioned reasons to relieve the conditionals that exclude them from participating as full citizens in the collective life of the country. Sympathetic models based on values like no-discrimination, acceptance, welcoming and fraternity that generate a culture of hope in them and around them, understanding this as a continuous action to reduce their vulnerabilities and risks of physical, social, sexual and familiar violence that can limit their welfare and development.