Training and Orientation on HIV/AIDS

Seminar on Alleviation of AIDS

Foundation for Social Care organised a Seminar on “Role of Islam in the Alleviation of AIDS” at Ghalib Academy, Nizamuddin, New Delhi, on 23 March 2008 in collaboration with Universal Knowledge Trust. The chief guest of the programme was Professor Akhtarul Wasey, Dept. of Islamic Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia and General Secretary South Asia Inter-Religion Council on HIV/AIDS. President of the host organisation Maulana Zaheer Ahmad Siddiqui chaired the proceedings. Dr Shankar Chawdhary, senior consultant on HIV/AIDS, UNESCO and Mr Sudhir Bhatnagar, CEO, SARD were the guests of honour. Mr. Abdul Rashid Agwan, honorary trustee of the FSC convened the seminar, conducted by Mr. Juned Haris, senior lecturer, Dept. of Islamic Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia. Mufti Arshad Farooqi, secretary Markazi Jamiatul Ulema and Mr Mohammad Arif, coordinator, Umang Community Care Centre, Lucknow, also expressed their views. A large number of students of Jamia Millia Islamia, Jamia Hamdard, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University and other educational institutions of the national capital participated. Certificates and prizes were given to the winners of ‘Quiz on AIDS’ held by the Foundation at different places and a book of Mr Abdul Rashid Agwan titled “Circumcision: A Natural Shield against AIDS” was also released on the occasion.

Training and Orientation Lectures

Under the Scholarship Programme of Foundation for Social Care, it has been resolved to highlight the pandemic of HIV/AIDS as the central theme of orientation activities of the year. Consequently, the monthly/quarterly meetings of the beneficiaries held during the quarter from January-March 2008, experts made the desired lecture for the benefit of the attending youths and students and their parents. Such lectures were delivered in these places: Delhi, Aligarh, Lucknow, Kolkata, Cuttack, Jaipur and Pune. Except at Lucknow Mr Abdul Rashid Agwan spoke on the theme. At Lucknow, Mr Mohammad Arrif, Coordinator of Umang Community Care Centre for people living with HIV/AIDS, Lucknow, trained the local students.

Quiz Competition on HIV/AIDS
A series of quiz competition on HIV/AIDS was organised by the Scholarship of the FSC at Delhi, Aligarh, Lucknow, Kolkata, Cuttack, Jaipur, Indore and Pune during the first qaurter of the current year. Successful participants were given certificates and prizes.

Resolutions of Seminar on AIDS
The participants of the above-mentioned "Seminar on Role of Islam in Alleviation of AIDS" unanimously passed a resolution based on the following points:
Muslims should sincerely follow Islamic Guidance in their social life based on strong family system, abstinence from permissiveness and adultery, regulated sexual behaviour, and the like.
The Muslim community leaders and NGOs should generate awareness about HIV/AIDS and its dangerous effects on human life within the community and should cooperate with civil society in the generation of a wider awareness in the country.
Indian Youth are appealed to abstain from all such means that play role in the spread of HIV/AIDS including fornication and extra-marital relations, unnatural sex, pornography, use of drugs and alcohol, etc.
The government and its relevant bodies are appealed to promote good moral life among all people of the country and prohibit those means that promote immoral behaviour in society.