Sydney Anglicans are seeing the fruits of their labours in the lives of Africa's young people whose AIDS infection rates are reported to have lowered.
Associate Professor Alan Watson of Gymea Anglican Church and Carolyn Smalley from St Thomas', North Sydney arrived back last month from a program of school improvement and other projects in Tanzania.
The Katoke Trust and the Archbishop of Sydney's Overseas Relief and Aid Fund (ORAF) have been working together to provide funds for an education campaign on AIDS prevention run by retired clergyman Canon Samuel Habimana.
The funding sources from Australia helps Canon Habimana to run youth rallies for young people of the area where they are taught about AIDS and given Christian teaching.
ORAF's funding cycle for the project was completed last year but the long-term effects are now being seen.
Associate Professor Watson says that this year the agency which runs AIDS prevention and patient care for the region, Tanzania Development and Prevention of Aids, came to youth rally which was held at a village over three days with its AIDS testing equipment.
"Of the 100 people aged 18 to 35 years (male 60 per cent, female 40 per cent) who were tested only four were HIV positive," Associate Professor Watson says.
"The medical staff, who had expected a much higher incidence, were delighted.
"Although pen and paper tests have shown that the program is well received and that knowledge has increased, we have had no way to know if this has translated into an effect on behaviour.
"This is not a random population sample so some caution is needed in generalising the figures. But the result suggests that the program over the past six years has been a resounding success and it gives hope that similar efforts can make a powerful impact on this most sinister of diseases."
"It is very difficult to get reliable statistics on AIDS in Africa," Associate Professor Watson says.
"Testing is expensive and those with the clinical symptoms typically live in denial and are always described as dying of something else - such as TB, malaria or pneumonia.
"But AIDS has taken a terrible toll around Katoke in north west Tanzania. Especially has it hit the young adult population - the breadwinners of the area - and it is the main reason that over 25 per cent of the children in schools of the area are orphans.
"One of the villages where we work, Kimbugu, has the sad distinction of being the place in Tanzania where AIDS was first detected and the incidence of AIDS is best estimated to be between 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the general population."
Rick Ford, Project Manager for the Archbishop’s Appeals Unit, says ORAF's contribution to the education funding was a small part of a larger project that helped to fund a medical centre on the ground of Katoke Teachers College, whose board is run by a local Anglican Church.
"We're really pleased to see the results of this incident," Mr Ford said. "We're delighted. The money we gave would have enabled people to come from far and wide."
ORAF also receives Commonwealth Government money to fund vanilla and malaria projects in Tanzania.
