Pastor Henry’s thoughts on working on HIV at the Nagonga health center in Uganda.

“We invite you to listen to Pastor Henry and some of his thoughts on working on HIV at the Nagonga health center in Uganda.

“I am Henry Abondo Werenyalo, a husband of Anna and a father to nine biological children, one adopted daughter, and nine fostered children. And by God’s grace I passed a church called Divine Destiny Pentecostal Church. Now my role as the question is, the role that I play, number one, I help HIV people to accept their condition in order to fight stigma. Two, I also give them hope through sharing with them the word of God. Because I believe it is the word of God that can bring hope even to the hopeless. Three, carrying out home to home visitation and in this I do counseling, I have counseling session with them, and three interaction to improve their self-esteem.

To manage HIV and gender issues, I do this always in my preaching. In my preaching I discourage domestic violence, sex outside marriage, drunkardness, and I encourage people to love themselves. Because if you love yourself you will have to know your status.

I think they must ensure privacy of the clients. The privacy is very paramount. Two, each person must be treated with respect and dignity, regardless of their age, color, status. And three, they should cultivate nurse-patient relationship. Also now as we in this program, I would ask the people who manage this, to get in touch with us, we join hands together, so together we can do much.”