The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is to visit workers involved with AIDS projects in Malawi in Africa.

|TOP|The visit this week by the Rt. Rev. David Lacy, will follow in the footsteps of Scotland’s first minister, Jack McConnell, who toured the country last summer.

Rev. Lacy’s trip around the same area as McConnell will be followed by a visit to Kenya as well as the northern districts bordering Sudan.

Entrepreneur Sir Tom Farmer, announced last week he would match the £240,000 in funding promised by the Scottish Executive to help Mary’s Meals, an Argyll-based project run by Scottish International Relief (SIR). The latest donation will be used to help feed an extra 20,000 children in Malawi.

The Moderator will leave Scotland today and arrive in Malawi 24 hours later, where he will then dedicate his time to the work being carried out in Africa to help HIV/AIDS sufferers.

|AD|Part of his trip will include a visit to an AIDS-widows’ self-help project and a youth programme focused on raising HIV awareness. He will also witness firsthand the work of home-based carers and hospitals in Blantyre and Ekwendeni.

Rev. Lacy will then meet with representatives of the UK government’s department for international development and officers from the Kirk’s Malawi-based sister churches, before taking part in a conference organised by the Church of Scotland’s HIV/AIDS project in Kenya. He will also visit health initiatives around the Sudanese border.

“The impact of HIV and Aids is an important issue in all countries, be they G8 nations or those in the developing world,” said the Church of Scotland Moderator.

"However HIV-Aids poses particularly tough questions for societies in East Africa and as such this had to be the focus of my trip to the region.

"Amongst those living with HIV there are stories of despair yet there are also stories of hope. I want to hear those stories and learn from them. Humanity is now living with HIV individually and collectively".

Rev. Lacy will be accompanied on his visit to the African continent by Nigel Pounde, co-ordinator of the Kirk's HIV-Aids project.