At a gathering called “The Summit on the Role of the Christian Faith Community in Global Health and HIV/AIDS,” the Christian Post interviewed CRS’ Michele Broemmelsiek about the role of faith-based organizations in the fight against the AIDS pandemic.
WASHINGTON – A leader in a faith-based charity believes that the story of religious organizations’ contribution to fighting the AIDS pandemic is largely untold.
Michele Broemmelsiek, global chief of party of the AIDSRelief Consortium at Catholic Relief Services, told The Christian Post on Wednesday at a summit on the Christian community and HIV/AIDS awareness that CRS hopes to “raise the profile” of the faith community’s efforts to combat AIDS.
“What brought CRS out to the summit is that we really wanted to make sure that we supported the idea of raising the profile of what the faith community has done to respond to HIV,” said Broemmelsiek. “We feel like the story is still not really yet being told with the same kind of enthusiasm and support that it needs to be told.”
She explained that the consortium at CRS includes several relief organizations and has put hundreds of thousands of people suffering from HIV or AIDS on treatment.
“Even more important [is] we’ve been able to put them on treatment and keep them on treatment. So the untold story sometimes is how many patients get lost. They stop their treatments, they die,” said Broemmelsiek.
“Of our patients we have ever enrolled … 80 percent are still in treatment … So I really believe that this commitment in the field of faith organizations working together is something that shows results and that it’s an untold story.”