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Chung |
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Women's Letter, Nr. 41, 2006, English |
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Dear Readers,
What does feminine mean? What does masculine? Who decides it? We usually have many kinds of prejudice. We are so accustomed to having fixed ideas about the roles for women and men. It is also very easy to feel prejudice against other people, particularly people with HIV-AIDS even though we frequently have wrong information and knowledge about them.
Can we honestly live with HIV-AIDS positive people without stigmatization at
least in the Christian community? We need to rethink our life roles in our daily-
based context as well as prejudice against people who are sick with this virus.
Having compassion for other people is not an easy task. To show our Solidarity with other creatures is a more difficult task because modern people are more egocentric and individualistic.
Poverty is the underlying factor for many things. Particularly poverty causes more
problems for people with AIDS. Due to poverty women sell their bodies or blood for the sake of family. If more people are sick from AIDS, more drugs can be sold. That means the marginalized poor people in the "South" are again victimized in this situation as consumers of expensive drugs from the "North". Even though we can not force pharmaceutical companies to give up patent rights, we can contribute to the enlightment of women regarding this issue.
If men with this disease are weak members among us, women with this disease are
the weakest members because women frequently do not have rights of self-
determination and for many different reasons face discrimination. So the risk of danger for women with such infectious diseases is worse than for men. That's the reason we have to deal with the feminization of poverty and Poverty of women in our global context. Moreover women should learn to say "No" loudly in order to protect their bodies as their own territory.
Women can make significant changes around this problem as well as everywhere in
this world. We have received stimulating stories from different contexts of our partner churches and organisations in terms of this issue. Yvonne Kavou from Congo, who is our expert and co-worker of mission 21 in Africa shares her story
with us.
There are two more shared stories from Camaroon through Sylvie Thomas who is one of the editorial members of Women's Letter and Ntumngia C.B. Ghana
who is women's work regional coordinator in the Cameronian Presbyterian church. Even though we have more contributions from Africa, it doesn’t mean that HIV/AIDS is a specific African issue. I want to avoid this kind of prejudice.
Ines Rivera is also sharing her story about AIDS ministry in Basel, Switzerland.
From Indonesia we can read the contribution of Emmy Sahertian who is ministering as chaplain and expert in a hospital in Jakarta.
Carmen Fernandez Urrejola who is one of editorial members of Women's Letter
interviewed M. Cristina Dittborn in Chile.
mission 21 is preparing for a 2007 consultation in Asia in order to make
links among people in our partner churches and organizations concerning this issue.
I hope we can work more closely to overcome this disease together. "Hand in
Hand against AIDS!"
Last but not least I am very glad to share the life story of Marie Claire Barth. In
terms of the 50 year anniversary of her service in Indonesia, I have interviewed
her.
In the Christian community many things depend on how we can share our
sympathy and compassion with each other. The body of Christ is moaning with
HIV/AIDS. Let us pray together for God to help us in our weakness. "We do not
know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us with
groans that words cannot express."(Rom 8, 26) Let us act together hand in hand against HIV/AIDS.
Rev. Dr. Meehyun Chung
12th. May 2006 |
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[인쇄하기] 2017-10-28 09:57:59 |
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