In an effort to curb the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the youth of today’s society, the Roman Catholic Diocesan Family and Life Commission last Saturday launched its first Awareness Day at the National Library under the theme, “Abstinence a way of life”.

Coordinator of the programme, Lucretia Stanton, in an interview told this newspaper that they are trying to promote abstinence as a way of life and not a preventative method. Meanwhile, a training of Trainer’s workshop on abstinence was organised through the Roman Catholic Diocesan Family and Life Commission in June, 2005 by a team of four, from the Governor’s Programme on Abstinence (GPA) in Louisiana, USA.

More over, there were thirty-five participants from over ten different Roman Catholic parishes throughout Guyana and representatives from other religious denominations present at the workshop which led to the formation of a sub-committee with the mandate to amend the curriculum to include Guyanese vernacular, statistical data and biblical references.