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Article by Candace Y. A. Montague, The Examiner
“OBAMA! FENTY! CAN’T YOU SEE? FUND THE FIGHT! STOP HIV!” — They were young, loud, bodacious, and angry. A collective body of AIDS activists in conjunction with DC Fight Back, Act Up Philadelphia, The Campaign to End AIDS, Health GAP and a plethora of other non-profit organizations electrified the streets of downtown DC on Tuesday. The DC Fights Back rally and protest was held between two main statues of power in DC, the White House and the John Wilson Building (city hall). On lookers were stunned to see more than 150 protesters, advocates, and activists holding up traffic while making their message known.
“WHAT DO WE WANT? HOUSING! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!!” — The message was more than just a plea for housing. It was a wakeup call for President Obama to keep his campaign promise of providing funding for HIV patients and to Mayor Fenty to fix a “broken system”.
It began as a mock funeral to symbolize the funerals of the 5,500 people who will die from AIDS in a day.
Article written by Darryl Fears, Washington Post
A coalition of groups led by D.C. activists staged a sit-in inside the John A. Wilson Building and a mock funeral procession outside the White House on World AIDS Day to call attention to the suffering of those afflicted with the disease.
Two representatives of the AIDS awareness group D.C. Fights Back were arrested Tuesday for squatting in front of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s “bullpen” office, where his staff meets, and refusing a police order to move from the doorway.
Larry Bryant, co-chairman of the group, and member Matthew Kavanagh vowed not to move until they could meet with the mayor to discuss their demand that he pare down a three-year waiting list for housing for people with HIV/AIDS.
Bryant, who is HIV-positive, and Kavanagh were part of a procession of about 200 people and five symbolic coffins that were carried from the White House to Freedom Plaza across from the Wilson Building.
There, speakers said Fenty (D) has failed to answer the “wake-up call” from an epidemiology report that said 15,000 adults in the District are HIV-positive, and that the city’s HIV prevalence rate is 3 percent, the highest in the nation, according to the city Department of Health.
We often forget that HIV/AIDS is not just a growing epidemic on other parts of the globe, but it is also an ever growing crisis that has also been plaguing America since the 1980s. In 2006 the HIV virus was estimated by the Center for Disease Control to have infected 1.1 million people in the United States with the number of infections growing at a rate of 56,000 more Americans a year. A recent study, conducted by the World Health Organization, concluded that AIDS is now the leading cause of death and disease for women between the ages of 15 and 44. International AIDS Charity Avert estimated that there were 2 million children under the age of 15 in the world infected with HIV at the end of 2007. AIDS around the globe, including America, is a growing crisis that we as global citizens need to address.
Washington DC has the highest rate of AIDS of any city in the United States. It is estimated that one In 33 DC residents is infected with HIV/AIDS giving DC an infection rate of 3%, though the number is believed to be higher. According to The Washington Post, DC’s infection rate is comparable to San Francisco’s during the height of the AIDS epidemic and has double the infection rate of modern day New York City. The Center for Disease Control views an infection rate of 1% to be a crisis yet the capital the United States has three times that number. 
The nation’s capital is the perfect place to voice our concern and demand an ending to the epidemic, both in DC and abroad. During the start of the Obama administration, many promises regarding AIDS were made. Promises about increased global funding for US Global AIDS programs, access to affordable generic drugs in developing countries, and lifting the federal ban on federal funding of syringe exchange were all broken as none of the promises have materialized.
On December first, World AIDS day, Washington DC will urge the administration to follow through with their promises. In an effort to inspire the US government to take action against the dire condition of the capital city, and in many places around the globe, DC Fights Back (www.dcfightsback.org), along with other groups including AIDemocracy, will be organizing a march/rally starting in Lafayette Park (the White House) at 12 pm and ending in Freedom Plaza at 2 pm. The rally hopes to raise awareness of DC’s and the World’s AIDS crisis and inspire policy changes.
Interested in joining the rally? Just show up at the White House at 12pm on December first, OR for more information on joining the AIDemocracy team during the rally, contact Priti@aidemocracy.org. On Facebook? You can RSVP for the rally and learn more about the issues there, visit: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187734974082&ref=mf.
It had started off simple enough.
Two weeks ago, still relatively new in my position as a Northeast Regional Coordinator with AIDemocracy, I spent a few hours trawling through Social Edge and twitter. With an eye on global development and security, my goal was to discover what was being done already in the non-profit world, who was doing it best and who among these folk were the most open to collaboration.
I made a number of new friends: the people at Acumen Fund, Water Charity (not to be confused with charity:water), Be Unreasonable, Sangam India, CORD and Open Society Institute were fantastic right off the bat– They were engaging, interested and human. It was like a Utopian first day at school.
In the context of my new job and projects I had in mind, I needed to know what was being done in terms of technology support for non-profit outreach and education services. One name that came up regularly was Ken Banks, founder of Kiwanja.net
I had heard of Kiwanja in passing before, but didn’t know much about it’s main project FrontlineSMS, otherwise known as \o/ (Which, btw, is a design based on this fantastic visual here).
I wasn’t sure what to expect. Before this Saturday, I had no idea who Ken Banks is as a person, and was as wary as a product of post-post-colonialism can be of anybody who does “non-profit work” in “Africa”. I was afraid I might run into yet another individual who’s working to “save Africa” just because that’s what Bono, the UN and everyone else is talking about right now.
[And if this is something that bothers you, Aid Watch has a great post on the issue here.]
I sent an email to Ken, one of those self-introduction/basic outline of project/can we chat sometime emails. You must remember that I moonlight as a writer: after all my experiences writing lit mag queries, I was prepared to face rejection or silence.
Want to learn how to get more involved in a cause you care about?
Come to the New Media and Youth Action Conference and learn why your involvement is key to making a difference!
This free, one-day community forum on progressive social issues like health, environment, global and local development, and cultural diplomacy will be taking place September 1, 2009, in New York City. Register at the conference website and connect with other activists, community organizers, and organizations working on youth outreach.
Not in the area? No problem! Join the interactive online community at the event site and start discussions with youth activists across the US and the world. Videos from the conference will be broadcast on the site as well.
Join and share your ideas!
It was last December, in a cozy Ann Arbor bookstore, that I first came across the book “The Shadow of the Sun.” I had finished all the previous books on my list (even succumbing to the chick-lit turned spiritual journey chronicle, “Eat Pray Love”) and decided to pick this one up and read it.
I was floored by its depth and detail. Written by famed Polish journalist, Ryzard Kapuscinski, “The Shadow of the Sun” outlines the tumultuous growing pains of the African continent in wrenching itself from the jaws of colonialism. In the mid-late 20th century, African leaders from Senegal to Ethiopia, from Eritrea to Mauritania, and Sudan to South Africa forged independent states through armed uprisings and bloody coups. The tragedy being that many of these liberation struggles did not result in emancipation from greed, exploitation, and poverty. Instead, colonial leaders were merely supplanted by corrupt natives.
What I found most fascinating about this book was the author’s descriptions of the someti
mes detrimental role played by foreign aid. Wars were waged over grains of rice and packets of dry milk. Hungry adolescents were easily convinced by powerful warlords to snatch aid away from the neediest to fuel their armies.
Apparently, not too much has changed. This very debate about the efficacy of aid has recently been raging through foreign policy blogs, online newspapers, and even talk shows. The ignitor of this debate is Zambian businesswoman, Dambisa Moyo, who argues in her new book,”Dead Aid,” that foreign aid has plunged Africa into a state of permanent dependency and painful inefficiency. Moyo’s primary arguement – over the past 60 years, a whopping 1 trillion dollars have graced the continent in the form of aid, ultimately, to amount to nothing.
Today was Day 1 of CARE’s National Conference and Celebration. Each year, roughly 400 500 CARE supporters from around the country gather in Washington, DC to hear the latest news from the field, learn more about pending legislation, celebrate together and take to the Hill to exercise our civil rights and let Congress know that eradicating global poverty is important to American citizens.
Tomorrow we tackle three issues:
- Fighting global hunger and modernizing our approach to food security
- Tackling climate change and reducing its impact on the world’s poor
- Protecting and empowering girls by preventing child marriage.
Believe it or not, all three issues are interrelated. At climate change increases water scarcity and descreases agricultural productivity in places like Africa, food security becomes a serious issue for poor families. Fathers faced with difficult economic decisions are more likely to marry their daughters at a young age to reduce household economic strain or repay a debt.
So, we are asking the US government to do four things:
- Make deep, immediate, mandatory cuts in US gas emissions.
- Provide substantial new funding to help developing countries adapt and keep those least responsible for climate change from suffering its harshest effects.
- Implement a comprehensive plan to combat global hunger–one that tackles its root causes by increasing funding for locally purchased food, in-country agricultural production and quicker emergency response.
- Develop a multi-year strategy to prevent child marriage in developing countries, requiring the Department of State to address child marriage in its annual Human Rights Report, integrate child marriage prevention strategies throughout US foreign policy, and scale up successful approaches to prevent child marriage.
If you are not in DC, but would like to support our efforts tomorrow, you can contact your respresentatives using CARE online advocacy tools at http://www.care.org/getinvolved/advocacy/index.asp#part3.
I also had the pleasure of interviewing singer/songwriter/social activist, Michael Franti, of Michael Franti & Spearhead this morning about his travels, his politicized lyrics, and his recent decision to join CARE as a CARE ambassador. Stay tuned to the AIDemocracy website for that video coming soon!
Last week a potentially highly-influential court case surfaced in Canada as a man was convicted of murder for knowingly spreading HIV. More here. Coverage of this ruling seems to be quite light, though the ramifications of such action seem quite significant. While I am no law scholar, it seems as though this could create a very strong precedent that could be mimicked throughout the world. Will this perspective be applied to cases of men intentionally sleeping with virgins in the ill-conceived attempt to “cure” themselves? In cases of HIV-positive individuals knowingly sharing needles? Husbands infecting wives?
If this ruling proliferates, what are the implcations on HIV testing and prevention? If you can be convicted for knowingly spreading the virus, but not for unknowing diffusion, will this drive individuals away from testing?
I recall sitting in the main hut of my rural Kenyan abode, gathered around with the family, candlelight enjoying the absence of electricity in the area, battling only the beam from our car-battery powered TV. Night after night, the family would huddle around the TV to watch the evening news, followed by the Bold and the Beautiful. Aside from delving into a part of my culture that I otherwise had no prior exposure to, it provided me an unforeseen peek into the impact of media on public perception. The perceived accuracy of American culture portrayed on the screen far exceeded reality. Despite my protests, I could not convince those around me that neither my friends nor I drove Bentleys, lived in mansions or suffered from chronic coma or amnesia.
As a little ferreting through some journals would prove, this is not isolated to cultural perceptions and simple storylines tied into popular media can have significant impacts on public perception of health-related issues. This becomes particularly significant when one considers the benefits (and drawbacks) that can stem from this.
In Botswana, a plot involving an HIV+ man in the Bold and the Beautiful was shown to significantly lower stigma to HIV (O’Leary et al. 2007). Similarly, radio shows there have been shown effective in increasing HIV testing during pregnancy (based on a character), HIV testing and talking about testing, reduced stigma and increased knowledge of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV (Pappas-DeLuce et al. 2oo8 and Kuhlmann et al. 2008)
Studies in Nepal and Brazil showed that watching MTV was associated with more positive perceptions of HIV (Geary et al. 2006). (I guess mama was wrong when she told me MTV would rot my brain.)
Australia has developed the Jailbreak Health Project which delivers “subtle” health messages to prisoners during weekly radio shows (Minc et al. 2007).
For a less doe-eyed example, check out the abstract for this article entitled, “Making monsters: heterosexuality, crime and race in recent Western media coverage of HIV”. Not entertainment-education per se, but food for thought nonetheless regarding the potential negative impact of media.
It goes both ways.
The next question is, “How do we effectively leverage popular media to promote positive health messages?”
Side note: For an array of fascinating snapshots on development issues and innovative communications solutions check out The Communication Initiative Network.
Purusing the paper this evening, my brow furoughed as I read this article: New Web Site Seeks to Fight Myths About Circumcision and H.I.V.
While the intention to dispel misconceptions, especially dangerous ones such as “…circumcision is 100 percent protective so men can stop using condoms…” is undoubtedly a valuable and necessary endeavor, I would be interested to view the envisioned pattern for dissemination of this information. Clearly, Sub-Saharan Africa is a target area for this information, but is a website the best means to distribute information in this context when it is estimated that only 5.6% of the population uses the internet? Furthermore, in my experience the use of traditional healers takes place predominantly in rural areas and if we generalize this experience, then the ability of these target individuals to utilize the website is further hindered by the rarity of internet access in rural areas. I realize that this may just be a piece of a greater plan to dispel these myths, and one that requires relatively low inputs of resources and time, I would be keen to see how much dependence is put on this tool.
This highlights the increasingly common battle discussed in my last post on effective use of technology in the developing world.
Final thought for further contemplation, how do health literacy levels impact the approach for dissemination of accurate information?
