Color Me (RED) for AFRICA

As I am sure you are well aware of the (RED) phenomenon that has spurred in recent years, I want to emphasize to you its undeniable importance. Product (Red) was created by Bono (U2) and Bobby Shriver in order to collect money for THE GLOBAL FUND, which donates money to women and children suffering from HIV/AIDS in Africa. Now, I know it is sometimes difficult for us to fathom the extent to which people are affected by these epidemics, because in our own country we are not exposed to it every day. But it is real and it is shocking. Luckily, I have my college roommate, Rachael, to thank for opening my eyes to this usually inconceivable problem and share with us how real it is first-hand. She will share parts of her journal that accounts for the school trip she took to South Africa this past May that focused on the HIV/AIDS problem. She described her trip to be "nothing less than alarming." And the worst part about this is, this is only South Africa. There is a much larger population to the North in Sub-Saharan Africa who are surrounded by sickness and death every day.

Journal for South Africa: Rachael Clark

May 10th, 2007

"We arrived to Groots Schuur Hospital after a little mix-up about how exactly to get there. We were supposed to meet with Dr. Roux, but he had to go out of town unexpectedly, so a new doctor, Sara Jane, talked to us instead about their organization. Their project is called Kidzpositive, and it was started in 2002. The aim is to support people living with HIV/AIDS, not just the patient, but also their family and community. It is also an income generation project to provide moms and children with 600-2000 rand a month and also provide them with transportation to and from the hospital. The HIV positive mothers are given the chance to go to high school and there are also counselors provided for them. Since 2004, Kidzpositive has had government support, which has helped tremendously. They provide clean water to the patients to bring home to their shack. They are sure to support and boost their self-esteem, along with educating the patients before they start the treatment. Sara said that she has seen young women come in feeling scared, alone, and betrayed after they found out they are HIV positive. In about a month, some become healthy and independent women. Hearing the excitement in Sara’s voice when she talked about the patients made me want to be a doctor in South Africa. It’s a place you can really make a difference. There are about 450 children enrolled in the program, and about 300 will stay longer than two years. They currently have two outreach clinics so that they can transfer patients home when they are stable, and the healthcare is within reach of them. She said that most patients are successful as far as following the treatment goes. The treatment that they take is ARV’s. The mom and child both take three different medications, but they don’t take the same ones necessarily. Sara also told us about when she was stationed at a very rural hospital in South Africa. She said it was a very traditional group of people, and she saw many, many sick women and children. The women in their community could not get married until they proved fertility, so they would sleep around to try and get pregnant. Of course, in this process they did not use condoms and acquired HIV. By the time the baby was born, it also had HIV from the mother. It was a sad, endless process. After Sara was done talking to us, she showed us around the ward. It was really sad. One section had tiny little babies that had gastroenteritis, and they were all on feeding tubes. One little boy was in a room all by himself who had recently been admitted. Sara told us that he has TB and HIV. I looked in his room, and he was sound asleep on the bed. She told us that he was 9 years old, but he looked about 4 or 5. His legs and arms were so tiny, and his head looked too big for his body. I felt completely helpless. How could anyone in the world deserve something like that? Then Sara showed us some kids who were HIV positive. I felt very uncomfortable here because their parents/grandparents were with them. I didn’t want them to feel like their children were just on display or something. I looked into one of the grandmother’s eyes who was sitting next to her sick grandchild. I could see pain and anguish. I could see the prayers and hope. I could see the questioning; why, why had this happened? Her daughter had probably died of AIDS and she is taking care of the baby. I once again felt helpless, for all I had to offer was a smile to let her know I was sorry. Sorry? Maybe not the right word choice, but I felt for her, and my heart went out to her. Here we were, ten American girls dressed nicely, walking through this hospital ward. What do we know? We have not been through anything compared to what these people have to go through every day."

In reference to kids at an orphanage they visited later that day..."I had so much fun playing with them—I think we all did! None of us wanted to leave them. Within an hour, I already felt so attached to them. I think I could have stayed there for a month at least and never have gotten bored. But they had to go in for dinner, and we had to leave. No! I didn’t realize how attached to them I had gotten until we actually had to go. Most of the group had already said their goodbyes and started walking away. Most of the kids had been called to their respective areas. Myself and two of the other girls couldn’t pull ourselves away from the kids. We waited until the last possible second to leave, and instead stayed and were giving them goodbye hugs and blowing kisses. That’s when I lost it. After a few more kisses were sent flying through the air, I turned and completely lost control of my emotions and started crying. I turned to see the other girls crying as well. I wanted to take the kids home with me! They truly touched my heart in so many ways. You wouldn’t even know by looking at most of them that they are infected with HIV. They are normal little kids that like to sing, dance, play, laugh, and just live. They deserve to live. This deadly disease should not be able to control their lives. So anyway, we eventually caught up with the group and said our goodbyes to the caregivers and workers. They were some of the nicest people I have ever met. Thank God we have people like them in this world."

May 15th, 2007

"Today we were at University of Pretoria all day, where they have a very extensive HIV/AIDS program. Their campus is also very beautiful. The HIV/AIDS program has been going on for about 7-8 years. Some of the key factors in helping the students at the university deal with HIV/AIDS are gender, sexuality, human rights, and stigma. The group of people that work in this program are very diverse and there are about 30 of them. They are representative of the races and cultures in South Africa, and many of them have social science background. They told us that about 12% of South Africa’s population is HIV positive. The University of Pretoria was an African University up until 1993, but it is now bilingual with the English language just as equal. Their HIV/AIDS program contains peer leading with peer leaders. They have figured out that is it a lot easier for a student to talk to someone their age, if they can relate more to them by having HIV themselves or knowing someone with HIV, etc. They offer counseling on campus, which has counselors who are mostly psychology majors at the university. They also have an education awareness team, community outreach team that goes to high schools and such, and another group that helps at children’s homes, and helps them with their homework and things like that. Another team is the research team, which deals more with data capturing and interviews. A major problem that the school is facing is that students are suffering from “AIDS fatigue.” They are just tired of hearing about it. They know what it is, but not all think that it can and will happen to them if they are not careful. Their program tries to make HIV testing seem very quick and easy (because it actually is!). The program works with various research organizations all over the world, and there is currently a study going on about babies of HIV positive mothers. One of the speakers’ name was Rakgadi, whom was part of the stigma project. There is a faith-based portion of the project, which works with a catholic church in the community, and there is also a work portion of the project, which helps people out in the workplace, providing clinics with a trained staff. One more area in which stigma shows up in is the media. They came up with indicators, and then came up with ways HIV positive people could interact with the media. Stigma happens everywhere, but these three areas are probably the top three. Another issue that they mentioned was that white people with HIV have problems because they don’t have as much support at home, and they don’t have as many people to turn to like in the black communities. It is a known fact that women exposed to abuse and trauma are more apt to get HIV, and there is a very high level of abuse among the communities. When the men find out their wife is HIV positive, they abuse her more and blame it on her, when in fact he is most likely the one who gave the virus to her in the first place. There are empowerment programs set up to help women talk about their rape experiences and get their lives back. A very disturbing fact that they told us was that there used to be gangsters who were paid by the state to create chaos in the black communities. They would gang rape women during the day while the men were at work. I could not believe that the state would actually pay someone to do something that awful. These people have seen some horrible things in their lifetime, and I give them many props for still moving forward."

May 16, 2007

"Today was a very eventful day! We walked back to the University of Pretoria in the morning to meet with them for a little while longer. We learned a lot more about their HIV/AIDS program. We learned about their HIV/AIDS human rights research unit, who works with the UN development program. Discrimination in the work place is an example of violation of human rights. Their job is to find gaps in the laws. Some of their advocacy tools are pocket size cards with lists (checklists), website, CD-ROM, etc. They told us that the will is there, but now always the awareness of how it relates to their lives and HIV/AIDS. Another project that they have is Parliamentarians for Women’s Health. This project is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. I think it is so great how much money they donate to good causes like this one. They really do spend millions, probably more, for organizations like this one. They said that there is a lack of awareness of the issues that women have to deal with such as rape in marriage and issues of that nature. There is polygamy in South Africa, so that also is another issue. Generally, there has been a positive response from the parliamentarians. They are trying not to force people to get tested, but rather inform them and encourage them, but at the same time must warn them of the consequences. The consequences are things such as becoming an outcast in the community, getting disowned by a family or significant other, losing friends, etc. if test comes back positive for HIV. Next, we learned about the ‘To Grow’ project from Jonathan Laphot. They bring together support groups and train them to become a group leader. The aim of the project is to give support to those people living with HIV. The group leaders are HIV positive, to give the others information and be a peer role model. The old president used to believe that HIV does not cause AIDS. A myth went around saying that if you take a shower after sex, you won’t get HIV. The media has a huge influence over people. These are just a few of the barriers that have to be dealt with in South Africa. There is now research going on for eventually suggesting to women to use microbicides, which is a gel that is inserted into the vagina after or before sex to prevent the contraction of HIV. This research is also funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for the most part. Circumcision helps lower the risk of transmitting HIV, but it is not guaranteed. The Zulu tribes still do virginity testing once a month where the girls have to line up and an elder checks them to see if they are still virgins. Can you imagine? That has to be the most mortifying thing in the world. They told us that this leads them to do other risky behavior like anal sex, which spreads HIV a lot easier. Even though some may think otherwise, they told us that scare tactics don’t work with HIV prevention. They have learned throughout the years many other methods to get their point across, but scare tactics would be a definite failure. Parents are still scared to talk to their children about sex. We thanked everyone at the U of Pretoria and made our way to UNICEF downtown. It was a pretty nice building and the pictures of all the little kids on the walls were so cute. We learned a lot of interesting facts. A few crazy statistics are that there are about 6.29 million people infected with HIV/AIDS in S. Africa. The South African economy and democracy is booming, but child well-being indicators are deteriorating. There are many different departments within the company, some of them being education and adolescent development, health and nutrition, child protection, and advocacy and strategic leveraging. One of their key strategies is early diagnosis and testing of infants. As far as schooling goes, there are one million children out of school, and only 65% reach grade 5. The three main problems at schools are gender inequality, violence, and HIV/AIDS. More than 11 million children live in poverty. Even though all the statistics are very sad, I think this company is doing great things to help the children in this country. We were not at UNICEF for very long, but I would like to learn more about the company on my own at a later date. "

So now that you hopefully have a better picture of the reality and magnitude of this problem, next time you read, see, hear about Product (RED), I want you to think of my roommate's experiences in South Africa. I want you to think of yourself there with the children, holding these HIV/AIDS victims in your arms, knowing that in that moment you would be more apt to give your extra pocket change to this organization or any organization that attempts to relieve the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It is imperative - not seemingly for us because it is psychologically difficult for us to realize the depth of this problem since we are not there. But it is imperative to them - it is their one chance at life, and the only world they know is a constant struggle.

Check out the links on the right side of this blog for the (RED) Campaign and I challenge you to take action for the wellness of human beings.