What We Do
Around the world HIVHope International is being used by God to empower local people, most of whom are church leaders, for effective HIV education and ministry. Built on insights and understandings developed in more than 30 years of HIV education and ministry, we facilitate seminars with small groups (up to 20).
Most HIV prevention education focuses on condoms and medications. Educators scoff and the idea of encouraging people to save sex just for marriage saying, "Human beings do not have the ability to exercise that kind of restraint. We know for a fact that there huge numbers of people in every culture in the world who can and are faithful in marriage. The problem is that when an educator does not believe this is possible, they tend to use language and ideas that communicate their beliefs and, in so doing, encourage people to have sex outside of marriage. This puts them at additional risk of infection.
We believe in people and their ability to make and carry out healthy choices. Those who have participated in these seminars have found this approach to be very successful.
Through these seminars participants gain a solid understanding of the facts about HIV. More important, their attitudes toward HIV and those living with the virus are transformed by God as they come to understand that It's about people, not just about information.
Central to the effectiveness of these seminars are deep discussions among the participants about their culture. HIV education is far more about motivation than just information and effective motivation comes from people inside a culture rather than outsiders. For this reason much of the five-day seminar is devoted to discussion among the participants about how they can motivate their people to make the life-choices necessary to accomplish the goals as HIV educators.
During the seminars each participant develops a creative tool they can use in HIV education. Rather than just lecture, these tools are creative ways to motivate people, communicate ideas, and overcome barriers to applying what they understand to their lives. The tool might be a drama, a song, a story, a poem, or even a new T-shirt design.
The video below shows portions of tools created by participants in previous seminars.
Most HIV prevention education focuses on condoms and medications. Educators scoff and the idea of encouraging people to save sex just for marriage saying, "Human beings do not have the ability to exercise that kind of restraint. We know for a fact that there huge numbers of people in every culture in the world who can and are faithful in marriage. The problem is that when an educator does not believe this is possible, they tend to use language and ideas that communicate their beliefs and, in so doing, encourage people to have sex outside of marriage. This puts them at additional risk of infection.
We believe in people and their ability to make and carry out healthy choices. Those who have participated in these seminars have found this approach to be very successful.
Through these seminars participants gain a solid understanding of the facts about HIV. More important, their attitudes toward HIV and those living with the virus are transformed by God as they come to understand that It's about people, not just about information.
Central to the effectiveness of these seminars are deep discussions among the participants about their culture. HIV education is far more about motivation than just information and effective motivation comes from people inside a culture rather than outsiders. For this reason much of the five-day seminar is devoted to discussion among the participants about how they can motivate their people to make the life-choices necessary to accomplish the goals as HIV educators.
During the seminars each participant develops a creative tool they can use in HIV education. Rather than just lecture, these tools are creative ways to motivate people, communicate ideas, and overcome barriers to applying what they understand to their lives. The tool might be a drama, a song, a story, a poem, or even a new T-shirt design.
The video below shows portions of tools created by participants in previous seminars.
Would a seminar like this be helpful to people where you live? Email us so that we can start talking and praying with you about coming to your community. We are currently praying with people in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Central America, Asia, and the US about facilitating seminars with them.
