A caritas project in Kenya. The Wii bakery employs the guardians of children orphaned by AIDS.

Credits: Thomas Omondi/CAFOD

“The love, care and the treatment I got from them has kept me going; in fact I owe my life to the religious workers who gave me rebirth. I was scared of death but now I am not.” (HIV infected man in India.)

A global picture of HIV and AIDS, shows that the pandemic is the world’s greatest public health crisis and one of the biggest obstacles to development. The number of people living with HIV in 2007 was 33.2 million adults and 2.5 million children. 

Almost 90 percent of people with HIV live in developing countries. 

The suffering goes beyond statistics: the pandemic causes untold pain and loss, devastates families, worsens poverty and increases disrespect for human rights. 


Sinethemba means “We have hope” in Zulu and has been adopted by one Caritas partner Umnini Sinethemba to express their vision for people to live in a world free of HIV.

The Catholic Church is one of biggest global health providers. It runs 5,246 hospitals, 17,530 dispensaries, 577 leprosy clinics, 15,208 houses for the elderly, chronically ill and people with physical and learning disabilities worldwide.

Catholic Church agencies such as Caritas provide a quarter of all HIV care in the worst-hit continent of Africa. Caritas works in 107 countries to provide access for all to prevention, treatment, and care grounded in the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Caritas workers support people with HIV by providing food, counselling, medicine, employment, education, and eliminating stigma and exclusion.

Caritas members have been working together since 1987 in four key areas - circulating accurate information, building up an effective response on the ground, advocating for full access to care, treatment, support and education for all, and discouraging stigma and encouraging compassion.

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Sources: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and Caritas Internationalis