B.D.F. personnel receive AIDS education

This week approximately twenty soldiers from the Belize Defence Force are participating in an HIV/AIDS workshop at Price Barracks. But it’s not your run of the mill education session; instead the soldiers are putting their heads together to come up with a plan to strengthen their prevention effort and find ways of mitigating the effects of the disease on the military. The sessions are being facilitated by Belize’s Martha Carrillo and Major Cheryl Brown of the U.S. military’s Centre for Disaster and Humanitarian Medicine. Both say that coming together is key in combating HIV.

Martha Carrillo, Workshop Facilitator
?We are engaging in a process of strategic planning for the Belize Defence Force, specifically for HIV/AIDS. We know that any response to HIV/AIDS needs to be strategic. We need to be able to come together as a force and recognise what are some of the needs within the force, what is really the situation of HIV within the force and then be able to come up with goals, specific goals and priority areas that we want to focus on. And so the opportunity to bring together different members of the Belize Defence Force from different ranks provides a consultative process as well as a working session for the development of a specific strategic plan for the Belize Defence Force.?

Maj. (Ret.) Cheryl Brown, Programme Mgr., CDHAM
?This disease can destroy the military which also sets other countries up for invasion or terrorist activities. And the United States got very involved because of that, and because AIDS is also a global issue, it?s an epidemic. It?s at epidemic proportions now, so we have to help each other in order to make this process or to get rid of this disease and that?s why we are so involved with it.?

The workshop runs through June thirtieth.