New ACET Projects in Africa and Central Europe

New partnerships and projects are being discussed / initiated in Georgia, Belarus, Kazakstan, Tajikistan, Estonia, Romania, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Congo and India as teams around the world continue their efforts to keep pace with the unfolding AIDS pandemic. In most cases these new inititiatives are driven by those already working with ACET-linked programmes in nearby countries. ACET founder Dr Patrick Dixon said: "We are seeing an accelerating momentum across the whole ACET family, with new clusters of programmes developing which are working together on a regional basis."

New Cluster in Central / Eastern Europe

There are currently six national ACET organisations in Central / Eastern Europe ( Russia , Ukraine , Czech Republic , Slovakia , Croatia and Slovenia ) whose work is primarily focused on education; although more recently ACET Ukraine is starting to get involved in some care work. As you will see from the news items elsewhere, the work of ACET is starting to spread out into other parts of the former USSR with links into Georgia , Belarus, Kazakstan, Tajikistan and Estonia amongst others.

The six national organisations have now come together as a consortium for funding purposes and are working with Samaritans Purse to try and access more long term funding to secure the further development of ACET work in Eastern Europe .

640,000 pupils attend Czech schools lessons

Under the leadership of Tomas Rehak, ACET Czech is now reaching around 67,000 pupils every year with a team of 25 educators, and around half the countries teenagers have seen an ACET Czech educator at least once by the time they leave highs school. Total attendance has been more than 640,000 pupils since the start. In 2004 ACET educators visited 252 cities, towns and villages and 604 schools. They did 3,773 hours of lectures (for free). ACET Czech has helped establish a similar national programme in Slovakia (ACET Slovakia), is a key player in the growth of ACET Russia and has also been responsible for starting ACET Ukraine.

From January to June 2005 Tomas Rehak, Director of ACET Czech lectured in 35 cities in the Czech Republic to 9,000 students. He was twice on national radio and talked about HIV/AIDS and what ACET is doing in this field. Czech TV made a document and used part of his and Frantisek's lecture.blic .

•  23rd-26th June Tomas and Frantisek taught at a big seminar in Minsk , Belarus . Marek Slansky from ACET Russia was there alongside them.

•  Czech TV is working on a 12-part series focused on HIV/AIDS. Two parts will be describing the work of ACET. There will not only be a lecture at high school, but also interviews with some lecturers.

•  ACET Czech Republic is involved in the organisation of a big youth conference called KRISTFEST. Lecturers invite students from schools to this project to support each other, enjoy sport events, music concerts and worship evenings. There are workshops, club evenings, seminars and counselling. Last year there were 500 young people there. This is a great opportunity to raise awareness of drug addiction and sexual health.

Churches Lead Fight Against AIDS
   
Christians worldwide are leading the fight against AIDS. In South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu estimates churches and faith-based organisations (mainly Christian) are providing over 60% of community programmes. In India there are already well over 25,000 Christian workers in care or prevention. This is a remarkable people-movement encouraged by CANA (Christian AIDS/HIV National Network), part of the ACET International Alliance.