Samaritan´s Purse: Giving Hope to People With HIV/AIDS in Honduras

This organization has dedicated its efforts to shred the overwhelming statistics of HIV in Honduras, with assistance centers in both San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa. Currently, it works under the supervision of Psychologist Aida Fajardo, and their goal is to attend an average of 940 people each month. Samaritan’s Purse is an HIV prevention program that seeks to reduce the number of people infected in Honduras, committed to the health and quality of life of the community. Their approach is simple: education. Most of Hondurans have little understanding about HIV and AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases, so it became apparent to Samaritan`s Purse that the whole key in stopping this pandemic was in educating people about HIV and AIDS.

This project works with a basis of Volunteerism, Counseling and Testing (VCT) which offers the community an integral attention in every aspect of their visit to the care center. The workers follow a carefully designed program that consists of pre-test counseling, rapid HIV testing, post-counseling, delivery of results and referral of positive cases to a treatment center. The VCT Project aims to promote responsibility and awareness in every aspect of the population´s sex life, supporting the consolidation of the national response to the protection and promotion of health in the area of HIV/AIDS.

Every day, the people that work at Samaritan´s Purse have a great deal of job ahead of them. Early in the morning the care center's waiting room is overflowing with people filling forms, signing papers and expecting to get tested. The center´s workers aid the expecting masses with whatever help they can provide, from simple answers to careful advices and words of encouragement. The center’s counselors offer psycoeducation of HIV thematic to the people. That means that along with the testing mission, Samaritan’s Purse care centers are developing a campaign to support and protect the community, by adopting healthy behaviors that reduce the risk of HIV infection in vulnerable populations.

As required by law, people have to undergo counseling prior to the testing. In this stage of the process, the advisers ask follow up questions to the ones the person has already filled out in the form. The counselors and the patient discuss the risks involved with the latter’s history, actions taken as prevention for STD infections and the risks the person has taken and should be avoided, as well as a future protection plan. The overall advice is easy, it implies Abstinence and Fidelity. Samaritan’s Purse incites the people to live by these two lessons. They encourage the community to abstain from sex as long as possible, to have only one partner and to remain faithful in the relationship.

But not every counseling session is a standard procedure; some of the people that attend Samaritan´s Purse have a history that goes beyond casual care. Many of them have been assaulted, have had sex for money or were involved in a turbulent past filled with drugs. This is the moment when the counselor’s job becomes the most crucial. The workers have to tend to the person´s need for advice, comfort and encouragement and find within themselves the necessary words to put back together some of the pieces in the puzzle of these people’s lives, or at least try to.

Most of these people, who have suffered so much, still face the aftermaths of their choices in a society ruled by stigma and discrimination. Here’s is when the counselors´ actions and advices come into place, to aid in the affected peoples’ lives and provide them with the indispensable guidance to pull through. The counselors have to orient them through the best choices in their lives, so that they arm themselves with the weapons against HIV infection and, ultimately, have a healthy sex life.

And the picture gets even grimmer when one of the people tests HIV positive. The counselors have been known to deal with a variety of reactions from resentment to anger, to depression to acceptance. When these cases come along, it is the duty of the workers to refer the patient to a special center to seek treatment and an immediate plan of action. The counselors have a follow-up plan for the victims of HIV infection in which they monitor the progress of the patient and make sure they keep taking their medications.

At the end of the day, those working as counselors or advisers at Samaritan’s Purse have trouble letting go of the emotions, memories and hardships that fill their minds when they prepare to go to bed. “It becomes especially difficult when you get your first positive” says a counselor from Samaritan’s Purse, “but the key is to keep going”. These amazing people do not have the luxury to stop and dwell on the consequences of a society filled with the stench of poverty, sickness and misinformation; they have to be prepared for the next person that might need their assistance. When asked how they deal with the frustration of not been able to do enough, a counselor confidently responds: “Where we end is where God begins”. It is easy to say then, that there is Hope even in sickness. (2/5/10) (photo courtesy Internet)