January 29, 2006
Religious Groups Get Chunk of AIDS Money
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:23 p.m. ET
President Bush's $15 billion effort to fight AIDS has handed out nearly
one-quarter of its grants to religious groups, and officials are
aggressively pursuing new church partners that often emphasize disease
prevention through abstinence and fidelity over condom use.
Award recipients include a Christian relief organization famous for its
televised appeals to feed hungry children, a well-known Catholic charity
and a group run by the son of evangelist Billy Graham, according to the
State Department.
The outreach to nontraditional AIDS players comes in the midst of a debate
over how best to prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The
debate has activated groups on both ends of the political spectrum and
created a vast competition for money.
Conservative Christian allies of the president are pressing the U.S.
foreign aid agency to give fewer dollars to groups that distribute condoms
or work with prostitutes. The Bush administration provided more than 560
million condoms abroad last year, compared with some 350 million in 2001.
Secular organizations in Africa are raising concerns that new money to
groups without AIDS experience may dilute the impact of Bush's historic
three-year-old program.
''We clearly recognize that it is very important to work with faith-based
organizations,'' said Dan Mullins, deputy regional director for southern
and western Africa for CARE, one of the best-known humanitarian
organizations.
''But at the same time we don't want to fall into the trap of assuming
faith-based groups are good at everything,'' Mullins said.
The administration is beginning a broad effort to attract newcomers and
distribute money for AIDS prevention and care beyond the large nonprofit
groups that traditionally have led the fight.
The New Partners Initiative reserves $200 million through the 2008 budget
year for community and church groups with little or no background in
government grants. Some may have health operations in Africa but no
experience in HIV work. Others may be homegrown groups in Africa that have
not previously sought U.S. support.
''The notion that because people have always received aid money that
they'll get money needs to end,'' Deputy U.S. global AIDS coordinator Mark
Dybul said in an interview with The Associated Press. ''The only way to
have sustainable programs is to have programs that are wholly owned in
terms of management personnel at the local level.''
Large nonprofit groups involved in health and development projects
typically enlist local religious groups because of their deep community
ties.
The goal now is to penetrate hard-to-reach corners of the target
countries -- 13 in Africa, and Haiti and Vietnam -- and bring aboard
community and faith groups that previously lacked expertise to win grants,
Dybul said.
Religious organizations last year accounted for more than 23 percent of all
groups that got HIV/AIDS grants, according to the State Department. Some 80
percent of all secular and religious grant recipients were based in the
countries where the aid is targeted.
Among those winning grants were:
--Samaritan's Purse, which is run by Graham's son, Franklin. It says its
mission is ''meeting critical needs of victims of war, poverty, famine,
disease and natural disaster while sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.''
--World Vision. The 56-year-old Christian organization is known for its TV
appeals -- some with celebrities such as game show host Alex Trebek -- that
asked people to support a Third World child.
--Catholic Relief Services. It was awarded $6.2 million to teach abstinence
and fidelity in three countries; $335 million in a consortium providing
anti-retroviral treatment; and $9 million to help orphans and children
affected by HIV/AIDs. The group offers ''complete and correct information
about condoms'' but will not promote, purchase or distribute them, said
Carl Stecker, senior program director for HIV/AIDS.
--HOPE. The global relief organization founded by the International
Churches of Christ recently brought comedian Chris Rock to South Africa for
an AIDS prevention event. AIDS grants support HOPE in several countries.
--World Relief, founded by the National Association of Evangelicals. It won
$9.7 million for abstinence work in four countries.
Most of the money in Bush's initiative goes to treatment programs, earning
the administration praise for delivering lifesaving drugs and care to
millions of HIV-infected patients.
For prevention, Bush embraces the ''ABC'' strategy: abstinence before
marriage, being faithful to one partner, and condoms targeted for high-risk
activity. The Republican-led Congress mandated that one-third of prevention
money be reserved for abstinence and fidelity.
Condom promotion to anyone must include abstinence and fidelity messages,
U.S. guidelines say, but those preaching abstinence do not have to provide
condom education.
The abstinence emphasis, say some longtime AIDS volunteers, has led to a
confusing message and added to the stigma of condom use in parts of Africa.
Village volunteers in Swaziland maintain a supply of free condoms but say
they have few takers.
''This drive for abstinence is putting a lot of pressure on girls to get
married earlier,'' said Dr. Abeja Apunyo, the Uganda representative for
Pathfinder International, a reproductive health nonprofit group based in
Massachusetts.
''For years now we have been trying to tell our daughters that they should
finish their education and train in a profession before they get married.
Otherwise they have few options if they find themselves separated from
their husbands for some reason,'' Apunyo said.
An AIDS-program pastor in Uganda explained his abstinence teaching to
unmarried young people.
''Why give an alternative and have them take a risk?'' asked the Rev. Sam
Lawrence Ruteikara of the Anglican Church of Uganda, a U.S. grant
recipient.
''This person doesn't have a sexual partner, so why should I report too
much, saying that in case you get a sexual partner, please use a condom. I
am saying, please don't get a sexual partner -- don't get involved because
it is risky.''
Secular activists say it is not realistic to expect all teenagers to
abstain from sex and that teenagers also should be taught how to protect
themselves.
U.S.-backed programs have spread abstinence and faithfulness education to
more than 13 million people in Uganda, according to the State Department.
Officials promote the nation as an ''ABC'' model, with its HIV infection
rate down by more than half in a decade.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said that on a tour of Uganda in January he saw
pro-abstinence rallies and skits praising Bush, and U.S.-supported groups
conducting house-to-house testing, care and counseling.
''The good news about the faith-based groups is not only the passion they
bring to the work but it is the moral authority and the extended numbers of
volunteers they can mobilize to get the word out,'' Smith said.
But Smith believes the administration is wrongly supporting some nonprofit
groups. He and several other congressional conservatives wrote to Bush and
the U.S. Agency for International Development, contending that several
large grant recipients were pro-prostitution, pro-abortion or not committed
enough to Bush's abstinence priorities.
The letters followed a briefing last year by Focus on the Family, run by
Christian commentator and Bush ally James Dobson. The group's sexual health
analyst, Linda Klepacki, said even some religious groups emphasize condoms
over abstinence.
''We have to be careful that the president's original intent is being
followed where A and B are the emphasized areas of the ABC methodology,''
she said.
Six congressional Democrats, in a letter last week to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, accused the conservatives of a distortion campaign that
undermines a balanced approach to fighting AIDS.
''Their attack is based on a narrow, ideological viewpoint that condemns
condoms and frames any attempt to reach out to high-risk populations as an
endorsement of behaviors that these critics oppose,'' said Rep. Henry
Waxman, D-Calif.
USAID has declined to renew funding for two major AIDS-fighting
consortiums, CORE and IMPACT, headed by organizations the conservatives
targeted. Those two groups fund hundreds of community and religious-based
organizations.
CORE, whose lead partner is CARE, is losing its central source of money,
meaning its work survives only if it can win grants from individual USAID
missions in target countries.
Family Health International, the lead organization of IMPACT, brought
hundreds of local and religious groups into its $441 million project, but
was told the administration wants new partners, said Sheila Mitchell,
senior vice president of FHI's Institute for HIV/AIDS.
Dybul said the changes are in keeping with the shift to local groups. Any
suggestion of political motivation is ''inaccurate and offensive to people
doing this work,'' he said. Millions of grant dollars still go to the
groups that were criticized.
One grant was delayed when Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., last year complained
about renewing $14 million to Population Services International, a leading
nonprofit condom distributor.
The group's bingo-style games that teach Guatemalan prostitutes about safe
sex misused funds ''to exploit victims of the sex trade,'' Coburn said.
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, then wrote to praise PSI's work as ''provably
effective and efficient.''
USAID divided the grant; condom distribution was separated into the smaller
part so that religious groups could apply for the other part. PSI
eventually won the larger grant. The second is outstanding.
Although administration critics frequently cite PSI as a group that fell
from favor under the new initiative, ''we have not been eviscerated,'' said
Stewart Parkinson, a senior program analyst.
The group lost U.S. grants in Uganda and Tanzania but retained others. And
Parkinson said he had no indication of political motivation.
---
"As I stand here right now, I can tell the American people the program's
legal, it's designed to protect civil liberties, and it's necessary."
-- George W. Bush on his felonious domestic espionage treason against us.
The Bush twins: Born with a silver coke spoon up their noses: Traditional
Christian Family Values at its finest
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