Race Against Time

Stephen Lewis begins the chapter with an autobiographical summary and how he came to love Africa. After leaving college in 1960, and the happy chance trip to a youth conference, he was able to work through a broad range of jobs and countries for 2 years in Africa. Then he was asked by Tommy Douglas to return to Canada to help with the new NDP party. He returned there many times during his diplomatic career. It was in the 60's when pre-AIDS Africa was "a continent of vitality, gowth, and boundless expectation." full of "hope, anticipation, affection, energy, indomitability." He was he said "smitten for life". So now his heart breaks.

It is impossible he says to talk of the Millenium Development Goals without talking of AIDS. AIDS affects everything in Africa, and every one of the MDGs.

AIDs breaks down all the social systems. Hospitals over overloaded. Staff are overwhelmed. So many people get sick that work stops. Teachers, doctors, nurses, mothers and fathers die.

Lewis calls the brain drain of professionals from Africa that exacerbates these problems "poaching" and points to the recruitment agencies effectively ignoring the official no raiding policies of Western governments. The UK has begun to address this problem by helping train local people in new health careers and he hopes this example grows.

He is a talker. He carries us with his words because he keeps telling us stories. His recounting of travel with Graca Machel, wife of Nelson Mendala and a grand person on her own account, is especially compelling.

Together they were in Uganda where AIDS was first identified in 1982. He recounts a visit with a decimated family where 2 grandmothers were all that were left to parent 36 grandchildren and there was nothing to be said. The grandmothers of Africa are the heros of Africa. They bury their own children and raise their grandchildren and other orphans. This has never happened in human history and "every normal ryhthm of life is violated". And when the grandmothers die, the children will have to raise themselves, the older looking after the younger. No teaching about life from generation to generation. No school. No job. Just life hanging by a thread. There are 23,000,000 orphaned children in Africa now, who became orphans while tending their sick mothers then watching them die.

Yet AIDS is not their biggest problem. As incredible as it seems, Lewis says their single cry for help is food. All over. All the time. In recalling his earlier time in Africa he says they were poor but not starving as they are today. And of course the lack of food makes the AIDS problem worse. Antiviral drugs can't be taken on an empty belly.

Story after story, Lewis rends your heart. The president of Botswana calls it "extermination". The prime minister of Lesotho calls it "annihilation". The president of Zambia calls it "holocaust". The deputy prime minister of Namibia says they are "on their knees". Lewis calls it "heartbreaking". Yet he also says "its the images of hope, however fragile, however intermittent, that keep the countries going."

And there are many heroic characters, and many heroic projects. He tells of training being given to truck drivers, and knowledge along with condoms being given to sex workers, of new schools bringing up the new leaders of Africa. He tells of programs to protect unborn children from the AIDS of their mothers.

Yet Lewis is Lewis. Yes there are dramatic results from these new programs in Africa. and reducing infection rates to half with drug programs is great. But in the western world these drugs reduce the risks to 1%. He tells how the Rockefeller Foundation has a program that not only helps protect the baby from AIDS but extends help to the mother and family - the PMTCT Plus Program.

He says with simple compelling clarity. "You see it can be done. If only the world were to care, Africa could be brought back to the life it once had." It is the memory of that life that sustains him.

His last story is of MSF - Médecins Sans Frontières - an exemplary NGO he says is outspoken and brooks no nonsense in these matters. He describes a celebration of a program of theirs in northern Uganda where in addition to dramatic success of treatment for the people with AIDS, where MSF had managed another miracle. They had somehow helped rid the place of the stigma that attaches to AIDS and in consequence the whole community was alive and joyful. That's most rare in today's Africa.

Media Selections The first are from UNESCO and are selected from their vodcasts of the last year. These are short (2-3 minutes) video essays. They capture the pandemic issues in Africa that Lewis raises. Highly recommended to subscribe (more info). Then a report in the form of audio and some excellent black and white photographs from Médecins Sans Frontières. And lastly a powerpoint presentation that Anne Toombs presented from her trip to Uganda. Anne's powerpoint requires hi speed internet (cable or DSL) - the large 42 Meg file will take over an hour to load if on dial up. If you do not have powerpoint, click here for links to free solutions.

FOLKS. THE VIDEO FILES WERE IN MP4 FORMAT, so I have either linked to the source webpage or transferred the file to youtube so so they will now work for everyone.

AIDS 2006 conference begins: Time to deliver for children.	World leaders accelerate action to reduce child deaths.
For a healthy pregnancy, teen mother receives medical care and a mosquito net.	UNICEF Executive Director speaks up for women at Clinton Global Initiative.
AIDS epidemic continues to affect children in Africa disproportionately.	Boy orphaned by AIDS speaks out on the impact of HIV on young people.
UNICEF Exectutive Director Ann M. Veneman launches "Progress for Children".	UNAIDS reports global progress against HIV.
UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman urges world religious leaders to advance women's rights.	Médecins Sans Frontières Voice - 2006 Activity Report Photo Gallery

TRACC Uganda - Taking Rotary Assistance to Communities & Children. A PowerPoint presentation by Anne Toombs describing a project to assist people in the village of Rakai region of Southern Uganda. Click left image.

Discussion - Pandemic: Discuss your feelings about what you have seen this evening. How can we cope with these experiences?

Frustration about helping. Are TV and other ads self-defeating? To what#extent do the media shape our images of what is going on in that part of #the#world? Too often we are left with feelings of hopelessness and #exploitation.#Is this good?

Struggling with how to help. Do we simply give money? Can we help people #to#help themselves? If so, how? We do want to make a difference.

We are exposed to the great need for women's rights. Grassroots action. Micro credit. Ability to organize locally.

Working with local groups with organizations like Rotary International.

We discover that our advances as Canadian women are not shared by all.

Reality on the ground may be worse than we have seen on the screen tonight. That is very scary.

We need to find ways of coping by alternate means. We need help to feel that we can at least do something.

We are looking for individual, local initiatives to support. Creative#ventures and solutions.

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