Such dictum was voiced by one of participants of Conference for Ukrainian Churches and religious organisations, held at Hotel “Rus’”. People often think that they are doomed, and the mission of religious figure lies in helping those people to move on. Some mistakenly narrow the mission of religious organisations and figures down to saving souls only, — rescuing the body, however, is no less important, as the body’s death means that the person loses further chances to repent and find their way to God.
Ukraine has started shifting focus in its combat with HIV/AIDS from advocating contraception to advocating the spiritual values only recently. Since April 2014, Public Health Service started strong collaborative relationship with religious organisations that had their own progress in the sphere at that time. It was the Public Health Service who, along with All-Ukriainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations and UNAIDS, initiated the Conference. Among the rest, Muslim delegation was present, namely Mufti of RAMU “Umma” Mr.Said Ismagilov and representatives of AUASO “Alraid” Kyiv Islamic Cultural Centre and Women’s Social Organisation “Maryam”.
The matter of HIV/AIDS in Ukraine is now put on the back burner because of a military intervention, while epidemiologists ring the alarm: these diseases are mostly spread in Donetsk region. According to the latest research, most HIV positive people and those with tuberculosis are now on the occupied land of Donbass. Moreover, there are 20 prisons and punish camps there, — and tuberculosis is a typical problem in these institutions.
If treated respectively, infected people are no danger for the others, don’t spread the infection and are even capable of giving birth to healthy children. However, it’s been a problem to deliver the medicine to the infected people living on the occupied territories recently, it became almost impossible. And if one can distance from HIV-positive people (which is doubtful) — but how can people protect themselves in case the tuberculosis epidemic breaks out?
Said Ismagilov who was himself forced to bring his family from Donetsk because of the threat for their lives in early autumn, wrote on his Facebook page when the event after the event was over: “At the moment, Ukraine is trying to resume delivery of the medicine, having involved the Red Cross, before it’s too late.Religious organisations shared their experience of delivering the meds, orten in volunteers’ backpacks literary. Only the guys armed with tanks, “GRAD”s and “SMERCH”es don’t care. perhaps they think that the tubercle bacillus and HIV won’t notice them is they have so-called “Georgi ribbons” tied on their clothing? If my fellow countrymen won’t stop playing the “Novorossia” game and wave the striped flags — the forecast is sad.”
Mr.Sergiy Dmitriev, Head of the Advocacy Department at All-Ukrainian Network Of People Living With HIV, voiced another fact revealing a greater problem: “We now have a big problem in frontier zone, as HIV prevention and treatment is something the refugees think about last among their priorities. Moreover, forcibly resettled people often conceal their diagnosis, fearing that this would prevent them from getting refuge and legal status. All that makes tracking of the HIV positive people almost i,possible. For that reason it’s really important that this problem is discussed at places of worship, that there are trained people who would talk to parishioners, calm them and lead them to places where they are provided with respectful assistance.”
Father Eugene Romashyn (Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate) from Kharkiv drew everyone’s attention to the fact that in terms of military action the chances increase that one can get infected not during some shameful act (taking drugs, being involved in uncontrolled sexual behavior), but rather during a heroic act of saving someone’s life. People hardly ever think of a risk of getting HIV while providing first aid to someone wounded. It’s hard, of course, to think about everything in a stress where someone’s life depends on your actions, and adrenaline makes further comprehension of what happened more difficult. For that reason, it’s very important that there’s someone who advised the person to approach a doctor as soon as possible — perhaps not only reanimated person needs medical assistance. And the best way, of course, lies in pre-educating people on how to act in such situation with a minimum personal risk.
Mr.Ismagilov stressed in his speech at the conference that religious communities must provide spiritual, moral and social support for HIV-positive people. “We think that uniting efforts of different religious communities will make a greater impact, besides, it will demonstrate unity of all the confessions in solving topical social problems of Ukrainian society, which includes putting a stop to HIV/AIDS distribution and overcoming their aftermath.”
The Mufti also told that the RAMU “Umma” religious communities have already been making their input in informing the society about HIV/AIDS problem: “Our communities worked in that field, especially in Donbass and Crimea. We published and distributed half a million of awareness-raising brochures… these brochures were meant for everyone regardless their confession, as the information they contained was mostly medical. Only in the end we told our readers about the HIV/AIDS counteraction solutions proposed by Islam.”
Mr.Ismagilov highly appreciated achievements of the Kyiv Patriarchate Ukrainian Orthodox Church Social Service Department, which the Muslims worked with earlier, and stressed that RAMU “Umma” is open for cooperation with any religious, government, non-government and international organisations.
“There’s no such thing as someone else’s grieve, and so much for one human being matters for us all, as a human being is the God’s most beloved creation.”
