Listen to AIDS messages - ADRA Co-ordinator advises youth

Mampong (Ash), April 8, GNA - Mr Yaw Opoku-Amankwah, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) Co-ordinator on HIV/AIDS for Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo, has called on the youth to listen to the campaign messages on the disease.

He said as the mainstay of the nation, the youth should uphold the basic principles of abstinence, behavioural change and the use of condoms to avoid contracting the deadly disease.

Mr Opoku-Amankwah was addressing the closing session of a five-day peer education workshop on HIV/AIDS, organised by ADRA in collaboration with the Sekyere West district Assembly at Asante-Mampong on Wednesday. The workshop was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It was on the theme: "AIDS Prevention: Everyone's Business".

The 32 participants, comprising tailors, dressmakers and hairdressers were taken through topics, including adolescent and body changes, counselling, mode of transmission, prevention, family planning, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and project management.

Mr Opoku-Amankwah pointed out that the pandemic was no longer a social issue but a developmental problem and therefore urged all and sundry to join the crusade against the spread of the disease.

Mr Samuel Kusi-Appiah, the Sekyere West District Co-ordinating Director, described ADRA's campaign strategies on the disease as unique and challenging worthy of emulation.

He therefore challenged the participants to replicate the same in their communities to enable the people, especially the youth to redefine their attitudes towards pre-marital sex as well as sexual promiscuity.