. Mwanza

By STEVEN ZANDE –
THE Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ) has said the Church and interested organisations should revisit their HIV/AIDS messages to help stop new HIV infections among youths.
EFZ executive director Pukuta Mwanza said there was a need for stakeholders to carefully examine factors behind new HIV infections among youths to help design messages that adequately addressed the problem.
“This is a multi-faceted problem which requires us to understand the present environment that we live in so that we come up with effective messages,” Reverend Mwanza said.
He said this in an interview yesterday.
Rev Mwanza said increased use of social media platforms required investigation to determine if they were not promoting illicit activities like sex and alcohol abuse which fuelled new HIV infections.
And a youth-based organisation, Youth for Tomorrow Zambia (YTZ), challenged young people to take hold of their lives and start behaving responsibly for Zambia to record a reduction in HIV prevalence.
YTZ executive director Rezin Magode said there was a need to strengthen messages that promoted behavioural change among youths while discouraging habits like alcohol abuse and illicit sex.
Mr Magode said adolescents and youths should be urged to develop positive outlook towards life as this would help them grow focused on creative and productive activities that had a positive impact on their future well-being.
The organisation intends to partner with other youth groups with a view to conducting a robust sensitisation campaign that will help bring out the potential in targeted youths to help keep them away from harmful habits.
President Edgar Lungu during World AIDS commemorations in Lusaka on Monday expressed concern about the number of new HIV infections among adolescents and youths, especially girls and women, a trend which he said reduced Zambia’s ability to tap into the social and economic potential of this age group.