ALLIANCE AGAINST AIDS PRESENTS BELIZE REFERENCE HIV/AIDS MANUAL

September 19, 2007

The Alliance Against AIDS has presented the Belize Reference Manual for HIV / AIDS.  Making the presentation to various stake holders in the fight against this epidemic was Executive Director for Alliance Against AIDS, Rodel Beltran Perrera. Rodel Beltran Perrera, Executive Director for Alliance Against AIDS:“What it is,it’s a directory of agencies that are providing support to people living with HIV/AIDS throughout the country including the Ministry of Health,Ministry of Human Development,the Karl Huesner Memorial Hospital,all those facilities that the ministry has in place providing services to people with HIV or their families.It also include in the directory,the name of agencies other than ministries that are providing assistance to people living with HIV,NGOs,Civil Society organizations,small groups that include the YWCA,YMCA,YES,different agencies that are providing services not only to young persons but persons living with HIV.It’s also a manual where those agencies can give direction to people who need assistance from those agencies.So in a nutshell,it’s a directory of agencies that are providing services to people living with HIV in a number of areas:for food stuff,for medicines,for testing,for pregnant women who need to get tested at prenatal clinics,so it’s a gamut of directories that we find is extremely important in improving the lives and services for people with HIV.” According to Perrera the reason the directory was published is because not many Belizeans know about the services offered for people living with HIV and AIDS. Rodel Beltran Perrera, Executive Director for Alliance Against AIDS:“The system is ad hoc,and people living with HIV don’t know where to go.People with HIV and their families are confused about what services are out there and so this is an attempt at trying to bring some kind of cementation  and saying here is a booklet that can direct people to get the proper services that they need.” Arturo Cantun,Love FM:“That was a project that came from the Alliance Against AIDS?” Rodel Beltran Perrera, Executive Director for Alliance Against AIDS:“We felt as an agency,having led,we feel very proud that we are that agency that has provided services for people living with HIV for years.We’re coming to our tenth year of service that we feel it was essential that with all our complaints that we’re hearing and people don’t know where to go,but we feel it was necessary for us to lead something like this.We will see it integrated into the National Health Referral System,but we felt that specifically for HIV/AIDS that it as extremely necessary that we get it done and get it done by an agency that has led the response to people living with HIV/AIDS over the year.” Among the main organizations that assisted in the release of the manual are the Belize Social Security, the Pan American Health Organization, The Strengthening of Belize’s Multisectoral Response to HIV / AIDS Project and HIVOS.  Perrera said that the manual is available to everyone, not only those infected with the disease. Rodel Beltran Perrera, Executive Director for Alliance Against AIDS:“Well not only to the infected,but to those agencies that they would go to and approach.Like for example if you go to a clinic in Orange Walk,or a clinic in Punta Gorda,this referral directory is going to be there because it’s not only the needs of those persons are not only testing and medical,there are other services that are needed to be provided in these directories along those lines.I would just like to thank the media and I think that it’s important that the media does spread the word,that there is a referral and it is free and you can share it with anybody.If you would like to make copies from us at the Alliance and they can call out hotline 223-6911 if they need it.” Rodel Beltran Perrera, Executive Director for Alliance Against AIDS. 

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