When I am home in the US and talk about “reentry shock” my friends think I am talking about going to Africa. No, it is coming home that is so shocking. Having just lost two children and hearing about a $700 cell phone for a ten year old is more than I can bear. How obscene has life on earth developed? Why is it that a child’s life in Africa is not worth two dollars? Or as Steven Lewis, former head of UNICEF once said: Where you are born should not determine whether you live or die. But is does.
Picture taken by AIDSfreeAFRICA volunteer Ann Higgins.

Another neighbor complained of having gotten a doctors appointment at 6 AM in the morning. I said: “you are lucky you have a doctor that sees you”. In Cameroon if a woman develops complications while in labor they wheel barrel her 20 miles to the next hospital. Can you imagine surviving that? They don’t. 1 out of 13 women die in childbirth.

However, we don’t see how much we loose and how much we have lost in the quest to get more, faster, richer. We lost perspective on what is important in life. I can honestly say that people in Africa are happier than any of my friends here in the US. Africans are warm and help each other. When I asked they told me: “I breath, I am happy”. They remind me of us New Yorkers after September 11th, when people were reminded on their own mortality and that friends and family are more important than the latest layer of paint in their living room or that the carpet needs to be replacesd.

Life in Africa is intense. You do not know who is alive tomorrow. Although we do not know that in the US either we sure pretend to be immortal. It is not until someone’s funeral that people remember how nice and precious that person was.

My wedding gifts paid for my first trip to Africa, Kenya and Cameroon. We told our friends to give us cash and checks. My friend Mike was so cute. He begged me to be allowed to buy something. He really wanted to have a gift in this hands and bring it. I told him “OK buy something that you like, bring it and take it home after the Wedding”. He got it that I was serious. I really wanted nothing but have my friends enable me to start this work.

Birthdays and Christmas are just like that. Request donations for your favorite charity.
If you like to read more about my work in Africa please click here.

Jessica Kim (2nd from left), who wrote this article for AIDSfreeAFRICA and her friends, all students from SUNY Buffalo. This is her second in a series of articles on HIV and Stigma.

It should be a fact by now that HIV is not transmitted by saliva, sweat, urine, or tears. The only thing more disturbing is that the man reportedly used HIV as a threat to scare the officer. The article goes on to say that this may “undermine proven public health policies that combat HIV and AIDS”. I can almost picture it in my mind; some readers of the news headline “Man with HIV is sent to jail for spitting at cop” will now have no doubt in their mind that you could get HIV through saliva. In addition, it depicts people living with HIV as potential villains, intentionally infecting people. Similar questions are brought up by those living in Western New York, who remember Nushawn Williams .

It is not to say that all people living with HIV are responsible about their status, nor that it is solely the responsibility of the infected to be educated about HIV. Since HIV can be spread through sexual activity, a social behavior practiced by most if not all people, shouldn’t everyone know about HIV/AIDS? There are many who are empowered to take control of their health because they have access to medical care and support. So we are left with the unaware, the poor, the stigmatized, and others without access.
We can take Brazil as a model for its impressive reaction to HIV. The swift uptake of prevention campaigns, legal rights for people with HIV, as well as universal access to locally produced drugs, has resulted in half of the number of projected infections in 2000 and savings of an estimated US$1.1 billion in AIDS-related hospitalizations. While continuing to protect people from infection, we must empower the ones who already are infected. Brazil’s model has laid the foundation for the missions of organizations such as AIDSfreeAFRICA. By providing universal access to drugs through building local production capacity, including getting the drugs to the people, the model Brazil gave to the world may work equally in Africa.

Owner Robert Achu shows off his huge cabbages to AIDSfreeAFRICA founder and President Dr. Rolande Hodel.

This used to be called “Charity”. What it really was, is using your donation dollars to pay for food, transportation, fuel, salaries – in short supporting the US economy. Thus most of your donation was going to stay in the country and not used for human relief. The hungry got food – never mind never enough food – and often only after nights of television stories and pictures of malnourished dying babies and appeals from UN officials. Direct food aid distorts markets, says Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations. For example, today Mozambique provides 80% of food aid being sourced in the country itself. This secures markets and helps to create the infrastructure needed to bring food from the farms to the markets and consumers. Translated, this means Africa will finally get roads build, a major handicap to economic development and prosperity.

First world diseases such as Diabetes and high blood pressure are rampant in Cameroon and medications to treat these conditions are not always available.

AIDSfreeAFRICA, a New York based non-profit uses the same arguments of economic sustainability to built a local pharmaceutical infrastructure to empower Africans to produce essential generic drugs. Only ½ million dollars away from starting full scale production, the organization is confident that producing drugs locally, by Africans for African, will finally make a dent in the notorious lack of essential medicines. In Cameroon, AIDSfreeAFRICA’s first factory, less than 1/3 of drugs urgently needed are imported. The country needs drugs worth US$16 000 000.
Hopefully more organization and Foundations will make the change - bye bye charity – welcome sustainable economic development. At the end of the day the question has to be answered: Who is making money off your donated dollars?

Watch AIDS: Dangerous Silence, a 28-minute documentary exploring how silence can change a community. Created in 2007 by WNED, the Western New York Public Broadcasting Association worked in collaboration with AIDS Community Services located in Buffalo, NY. It has now been incorporated as part of the HIV education in the Buffalo Public School system, probably one of the most comprehensive programs in the United States.

Having worked around issues of sexual health including HIV, I (Jessica) have become immune to the barrage of questions that come with the job description. “Do you have extra condoms I could use?” “What’s it like getting tested for sexually transmitted infections?” “How does vaginal sex increase risk of HIV transmission?” When I was twelve, I discovered that my friend lived with her single mom, whose husband had left her a long time ago. With parents of my own who were happily married, I withheld the gasp I was about to let out and said the only thing I could think to say: “I’m sorry.” We never talked about it again. You’re thinking that it was a silly reaction on the part of my twelve-year-old self.

So, what would you do? Yes, single motherhood is a vastly different situation than the daunting prospect of living with HIV. However those in both situations face social stigma. In an increasingly politically correct world, sometimes we choose silence over facing a subject that may make us uncomfortable. But with HIV, silence is dangerous.

Those living with HIV may find themselves humiliated, eventually declining further medical support due to fear of disclosure. Others are unaware of their status because they would rather not know. Why would they as long as HIV is still perceived as a death sentence? According to the Centers of Disease Control, 1 in 4 people with HIV in the United States at the end of 2003 were unaware of their infection, with the potential to spread the virus to those they love. However with modern medicine, HIV is not necessarily a death sentence anymore, transmission between partners can be prevented, and mothers can have healthy babies without passing the virus on. We are more than 25 years from the inception of HIV, and yet stigma still lurks the dark mystery that is HIV/AIDS. As volunteers for AIDSfreeAFRICA, we generate discussions about the impediments to decreasing infection and mortality rates in Africa such as access to drugs and unemployment. Let’s talk about it.

If you have 3-6 month time between August and May, $3000 to $4000 to cover the flight and costs associated with the trip we’d be thrilled to hear from you. Please check out our web site
AIDSfreeAFRICA. Volunteers are needed to bring a lab top computer to teach English, computer skills and how to navigate the internet. Lack of education and knowledge on the spread and prevention of HIV/AIDS are desperately needed. Books and printing cost are too high. The lab top can teach many more students hungry for knowledge.

AIDSfreeAFRICA is a non-profit organization whose main purpose is to help Africans to build small factories to produce essential, generic drugs for the local markets. The organizations headquarter is in Westchester, New York. Anyone interested in participation in fundraising and efforts to spread the word are welcome too.

Other volunteer organizations operating in Cameroon are: Canada based Volunteer Service Organization, VSO, Catholic Relieve Services, CRS, CARE, Jimmy Charter Foundation, or donate a goat to Heifer!

Thank you in advance for your support and for encouraging the widest
possible participation!

Africa stores 2/5th of the world’s natural resources. There is no reason that the continent is as poor as it is. Creating “Equality” between the continents is not rocket science. We need to stop thinking of investing in Africa to make a profit for us in America or Europe and instead start investing in Africa with the goal to keep the profits in that continent otherwise we are perpetuating “Colonialism” via remote control. Columbia University Professor of Sustainable Development Jeffery Sachs en.wikipedia.org when interviewed for the July 2007 issue of Vanity Fair puts it succinctly: “We are talking about one percent of our income to avert calamity.” One percent is hardly asking for equality.