The Wake County Human Services HIV/STD Program and Wake County HIV Faith Coalition will mark the Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS with a special awareness service, March 12. With the Wake County HIV Faith Coalition’s commitment to unifying leaders in the African American faith community to break down communication barriers and create opportunities for HIV prevention education with unconditional compassion, it joins thousands of faith communities across the nation observing the National Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS in an effort to bring attention and awareness to the HIV/AIDS epidemic here in the United States and to encourage a national dialog on HIV/AIDS education, treatment and care.

The program will take place at Freedom Temple Church, 615 Royal Street, Raleigh, North Carolina at 7 p.m. with guest speaker Minister Reginald S. Hinton, Jr., Associate Minister at St. Mary’s Freewill Baptist Church in Apex.

As of 2007, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported that more than twenty-one thousand people are living with HIV in North Carolina (an estimated 21,593 adults and adolescents), and approximately sixty-nine percent of those individuals are African American. African Americans make up about twenty-two percent of the total population in North Carolina; however, African Americans experience new HIV infections at seven times the rates of whites. (reported from NC Epidemiologic Profile for HIV/STD Prevention and Care Planning 2008) For more information about the Wake County HIV Faith Coalition and the Wake County Human Services HIV/STD Program, contact 919-250-3883.