Posted on 03/13/2002 12:01:41 PM PST by goodnesswins
Tackling AIDS in Africa
By Richard E. Stearns .... Special to The Times
Six months ago, 19 young men boarded four jetliners and killed nearly 4,000 people. In an unprecedented outpouring of compassion, Americans donated more than a billion dollars in a matter of weeks to care for those affected by the terrorists' attacks and resulting crisis.
Last week, two of our country's leading citizens boarded a plane to call attention to another crisis, one that has already killed 22 million people and threatens to orphan 40 million children by the end of the decade.
Jimmy Carter, America's most-respected former president, is traveling to Africa with a man who has one of the most difficult jobs in America: giving away — responsibly — more than $20 billion. Bill Gates Sr. is co-director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the father of the richest man in the world.
The visit lends the considerable weight of the Carter and Gates names to the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world, and demonstrates the commitment of their foundations to stop the killing of millions of Africans resulting from AIDS. But will it move Americans to respond with compassion for the widows, orphans and other survivors of the 8,000 people who die of AIDS each day?
Regrettably, most Americans don't care about Africa's AIDS crisis. And our government doesn't care enough.
President George W. Bush has proposed $900 million in spending next year on the AIDS crisis — less than the cost to build one cost-overrun-plagued LPD-17 Amphibious Ship for the Navy. And it's about enough to buy a latte and biscotti for every American. In the 20 minutes it takes to drink that latte, more than 100 people will die of AIDS, most of them in developing countries. Every minute, a child dies of AIDS.
The U.S. government is channeling millions of dollars through non-governmental humanitarian organizations, including World Vision, to effectively fight the AIDS crisis. But much more must be done. By the year 2005, 100 million people will have been infected with this fatal disease — more than the combined casualties, military and civilian, of World Wars I and II.
America's might was critical to victory over tyranny in the past century; its leadership is essential to winning the war against AIDS in the new century.
AIDS is the greatest challenge to relief and development organizations in a half-century. While facing needs for new services on a massive scale, aid agencies are seeing development gains — won through decades of education and development assistance — wiped out. For example, average life expectancy in Botswana is predicted to drop below 30 by the year 2010 because of AIDS. Families, communities — even entire economies — are being wiped out.
Until recently, the disease's long and devastating march across Africa has gone largely unnoticed in the United States. In its first decade, the American public saw AIDS as a disease primarily of homosexuals, drug users and those unfortunate enough to have received tainted blood products.
Its second decade brought more awareness of medical advances that have enhanced and prolonged the lives of countless people, including celebrities like Magic Johnson, who are infected with the AIDS virus. However, by no means is it a manageable, chronic disease in Africa, home to 70 percent of the world's 40 million AIDS cases. In some countries, public spending on health care is just $5 per person. Often, families caring for AIDS patients can barely afford soap, let alone anti-viral drug regimens.
But as the disease headed for its third decade, U.S. media coverage of AIDS in Africa reached the covers of publications such as Time and Newsweek, as well as network television. The public is aware of the AIDS crisis. But most Americans still don't care.
A poll conducted last year by the Barna Research Group found that only 8 percent of Americans would definitely donate money for the international AIDS crisis. By contrast, more than 70 percent of Americans donated to charities helping people affected by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
While an additional one-third of respondents to the Barna poll said they might give to help Africa's AIDS crisis, more than half said they would not help children orphaned because of AIDS (54 percent) or support AIDS education and prevention overseas (61 percent).
Meanwhile, Africans are tackling their own problems, often without any help from the West.
In the community of Kagera, Tanzania, grandmothers welcomed their children home — to die. They didn't want to lose the next generation, too. So each day, the grandmothers sat with their grandchildren under a tree, teaching them what they could. Impressed by their efforts, a local farmer gave them two cows — providing milk for the children and a small amount to sell. Another villager donated a plot of land. Today, 40 orphans attend a two-room school.
Eventually, the grandmothers received more help. But first, they demonstrated the inner strength necessary to tackle the AIDS problem and the intuitive understanding of what their grandchildren needed most: education, hope and empowerment.
It's a message we hope our former president and America's leading philanthropist bring home. Africa's AIDS crisis can be solved. But it will take determination on the part of African leaders, leadership by the U.S. government, and generosity by the American people on the scale demonstrated on Sept. 11.
Richard E. Stearns is president of Federal Way-based World Vision (www.worldvision.org). Founded in 1950, World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization, serving the world's poorest children and families in nearly 100 countries.
Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company
I can't believe this!!!!
They trying to blame Pete Townshend for AIDS now?They just don't want to get fooled again.
-Eric
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