HIV/AIDS is disproportionately affecting the black community at alarming rates, but a powerful week of prayer, education and action has been planned to make a difference in the numbers.

The 19th annual Black Church Week of Prayer for the "Healing of AIDS" is being observed through March 8. The education and awareness campaign, which began Sunday, highlights the role black churches play in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The campaign serves to pave the way for the continuous delivery of prevention education and services to black Americans via faith communities. In Orangeburg, the initiative will be celebrated at Victory Tabernacle Church, 681 Broughton St., and Anointed Light Church in Eutawville.

"I think it should be more than a week. I think it should be an everyday thing," said Pat Kelly, a member of Victory Tabernacle Church who is living with AIDS.

She said the purpose of the weeklong observance is to get churches to recognize that HIV/AIDS has reached crisis proportions in the black community. She said her church's pastor, Suffragan Bishop Michael C. Butler, addressed the HIV/AIDS issue in his Sunday sermon, as would other pastors participating in the initiative.

Kelly is a member of the church's "A Family Affair" support group for those with HIV/AIDS and their families. She said the group will hold a prevention and awareness program at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 6, at the church. Featured speakers, some of whom were born with HIV, will speak about their experiences and discuss the importance of family in helping relieve some of the stigma and other factors impacting those living with HIV/AIDS.

"It's important that we try and pray for people living with HIV," Kelly said. "It shows unity, and it shows that people are working together.

"Churches all over are doing different things, and that shows unity. If we can work like that to do different things, I believe we can start to work to eradicate this disease all together."

Anointed Light Church members have held 24-hour prayer sessions since last week and will continue through this week in observance of the national initiative, said Karen Clinton, director of the HIV Prevention Project at the Orangeburg-Calhoun-Allendale-Bamberg Community Action Agency Inc.

"They're praying for others in the community, but we're praying for the healing of HIV/AIDS as well," said Clinton, noting that Anointed Light Church was among a group of churches to received grant funding from the nonprofit, Columbia-based S.C. HIV/AIDS Council under its Project FAITH, or Fostering AIDS Initiatives.

The funds were used to develop programs targeting HIV/AIDS prevention.

"It's imperative to lift those living with HIV/AIDS up in prayer," Clinton said. "We're just trying to combat stigma, especially in the church."

For more information on the Black Church Week of Prayer, visit www.balmingilead.org.

T&D Staff Writer Dionne Gleaton can be reached by e-mail at dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or by telephone at 803-533-5534. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

You must be logged in to comment.