"AIDS battle burnishes Bush's legacy in Africa" -- Associated Press

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - In her AIDS-scarred South African township, Sweetness Mzolisa leads a chorus of praise for George W. Bush that echoes to the deserts of Namibia, the hills of Rwanda and the villages of Ethiopia.

Like countless Africans, Mzolisa looks forward to Barack Obama becoming America's first black president Jan 20. But — like countless Africans — Mzolisa says she will always be grateful to Bush for his war on AIDS, which has helped to treat more than 2 million Africans, support 10 million more, and revitalize the global fight against the disease.

"It has done a lot for the people of South Africa, for the whole of the African continent," says Mzolisa, a feisty mother of seven. "It has changed so many people's lives, saved so many people's lives."

Mzolisa, 44, was diagnosed with the AIDS virus in 1999 and formed a women's support group to "share the pain." In 2004 she received a U.S. grant to set up office in a shipping container and start a soup kitchen from the group's vegetable garden. She stretches her $10,000 in annual funding to train staff to look after bedridden AIDS victims, feed and clothe orphans, and do stigma-busting work at schools and taxi ranks.

Hundreds of projects get funding

Hundreds of similar small grass-roots projects are being funded by the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, alongside higher-profile charities and big state clinics.

Bush launched the $15 billion plan in 2003 to expand prevention, treatment and support programs in 15 hard-hit countries, 12 of them African, which account for more than half the world's estimated 33 million AIDS infections. The initiative tied in with a World Health Organization campaign to put 3 million people on AIDS drugs by 2005 — a goal it says was reached in 2007.

Congress last year passed legislation more than tripling the budget to $48 billion over the next five years, with Republicans and Democrats alike hailing the program as a remarkable success.

But the task remains enormous. More than 1.5 million Africans died in 2007 (the U.S. death toll is under 15,000), fewer than one-third had access to treatment, and new infections continued to outstrip those receiving life-prolonging drugs.

In most African countries, life expectancy has dropped dramatically, and only a few, like Botswana, have started to turn the corner again.

And with no end in sight to the global financial crisis, there are fears about whether all the funding approved by Congress will be delivered.

Read the entire story here.

"Tales from the Peace Corps" by Sarah Bush

I recently had the chance to visit a dear friend of mine who is serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica. Like me, Heidi Koester is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she studied journalism, and has written for a variety of publications including National Geographic Adventure. Heidi is doing great work in Costa Rica that I thought readers of the blog, especially those considering joining the Peace Corps, might enjoy learning about. So this month, my blog will be a short interview with Heidi.

SB: What is the Peace Corps?

HK: The United States Peace Corps, founded in 1960, provides opportunities for Americans to spend two years working in a developing community in one of 130 countries. Volunteers serve in projects ranging from clean water acquisition to computer center construction. The program has three goals: helping interested countries meet their own needs through trained men and women, promoting a better understanding of Americans abroad, and providing Americans with greater understanding of other cultures. You can read about the application process and specific project details in world regions at www.peacecorps.gov.

SB: What projects are you working on?

HK: I am finishing my two years of service in Cabeceras, Costa Rica, a rural mountain town home to 700 residents. My official assignment is “Rural Community Development,” and I've focused my work in community organization, education and economic opportunity.

Cabeceras is close to a tourist destination, the Monteverde cloud forest, so one of my major projects has been working with a women's group to create a program where tourists can visit our local elementary school, learn about rural education in Costa Rica, and participate in a pen-pal exchange with our students. Tourists try home-made bread and students in our year-old folkloric dance group practice their presentations for visitors. We've created a safe way for tourists to donate to community projects, and a lot of my work has been in modeling donor relation skills and introducing project management/ project design steps to a women's group. The group has managed more than $15,000 in donations and invested in classroom repairs and expansions, the creation of a computer center, construction of a fence for increased school security and the purchase of musical instruments.

Along with the women's group, we created an annual Cabeceras Calendar, using donated disposable cameras. Kids documented their lives, some of them using a camera for the first time, and they wrote small descriptions of their images. We created a bilingual calendar with local and international sponsors, marketing the project in Costa Rica, Canada, England and the United States. In our first year we raised more than $4,000 and the second annual calendar project is almost done. We have cameras ready to go for the third edition, and the test of the project's sustainability comes in next year's project, when I've left the community.

As secondary projects, I work in adult English language instruction, computer education and creative arts workshops for children. This weekend I'm working with a Chilean couple to bring one of Costa Rica's premiere symphony orchestras (La Big Band) to Cabeceras for a free concert. We hope to begin a program of cultural performances in this rural community, introducing music and theater to those who have never experienced the arts.

SB: What is the impact of tourism in your community?

HK: Tourism is the number-one source of income in Costa Rica, and as the most-visited country in Central America, Costa Rica offers valuable travel experiences to its visitors. Almost every child in Cabeceras comes from a family that depends on tourists for income, either directly (through employment in Monteverde hotels or restarutants) or indirectly (selling milk to a factory in Monteverde, where tourists buy ice cream or cheese, or growing coffee that many tourists purchase). Tourists leave tremendous financial donations and build memories and relationships with community members through pen-pal programs and continued communication. One eight-year-old boy who lives near the school has covered the walls of his tin-roofed house with postcards and drawings from tourists, or stories he wrote with visitors. He's taken on the role of “tour guide” for groups visiting the school and is learning more and more English each day, a testament to the way tourism is changing perspectives for kids in Cabeceras.

However, in Cabeceras I have seen tourists leave behind negative side effects - giving large amounts of money to a handful of children (causing problems among families and other students) or simply arriving, taking photographs and leaving. The latter treatment makes the Cabeceras community (and my work) out to be a zoo or an exhibit. My goal has been to help create a positive experience for both the tourist visiting Cabeceras and the community members who call the town home.

SB: How can we make sure that we are respectful and responsible tourists?

HK: Many people have great intentions to help a community or group of people that they met during their trip. From my experiences in Cabeceras, I see that it is important to remember a few things to be a responsible and respectful tourist.

1. Say something in the native language. Even if it is just hello or goodbye.

2. If you want to help with community cause or an individual, try to understand the donation protocol or think through methods of donation in order to do everything possible to make sure your funds are well-managed.

3. Promise what you can deliver, but not more. And don’t let your desire to contribute fade when you return to your “real” life.

Sarah Bush is a PhD candidate in International Relations in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. Sarah has worked with Americans for Informed Democracy, an organization on 1,000 colleges that works to raise global awareness among students, as its Co-Executive Director during the 2005-2006 academic year. Her previous experience also includes work for the U.S. State Department, the St. Louis City Mayor's Office and Teach for America.

Hope in Rwanda

by Sarah Bush

I just got back from a trip to Rwanda. In fact, I’m writing this blog post in the middle of the night because I’m still really jet lagged. I went there for eight days with two fellow graduate students from Princeton University in order to conduct field research about the country’s 2008 legislative elections. We’re part of a broader class on the topic of “managing elections in fragile states.” I’m still processing what I saw, but let me share some reflections with you.

Anything that you might say about Rwanda today invariably must start back with the 1994 genocide. The memory of that tragedy, and the years of violence that led up to it, is still fresh. The fear of a return to conflict is real. Here is a view looking out over Kigali, the capital city of the land of “a thousand hills,” from the Kigali Genocide Memorial’s garden.

However when you are walking around along the streets of Kigali, the perspective that you get is a very different one. It is a bustling city with smooth roads and many cranes helping to construct shiny new buildings. As one young Rwandan woman observed, “When there is peace, you can build.” Indeed, Rwanda is making impressive progress on several MDGs; for example, the enrollment rate for primary school is 95% and there is no gender gap in primary education.

Meanwhile, the government is working hard to promote reconciliation and Rwandan national identity rather than ethnic identities. It’s taboo to ask if someone is a Hutu or Tutsi (and it’s impossible to tell by looking). If you did ask, the person would probably tell you that he or she is Rwandan, since everyone we spoke to recognizes the terrible consequences of ethnic divisions and does not want to go back to them. One genocide survivor, who still had palpable anger about the genocide, told us how his Christian faith was helping him try to forgive and raise his children to respect all ethnicities.

Despite all of the positive developments, Rwanda is still a fragile state, and a fragile democracy. Although everyone agrees that the country is headed in the right direction in terms democratizing, many disagree as to whether it is going fast enough. The media, civil society and political parties are particular areas of concern. We’re writing a report right now to describe ways in which international donors can and should address them. Building a democratic culture of peaceful political competition is not easy in a country with Rwanda’s history. Only time will tell, but we are hopeful.

Sarah Bush is a PhD candidate in International Relations in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. She has worked in the past with Americans for Informed Democracy, an organization on 1,000 colleges that works to raise global awareness among students, as its Co-Executive Director during the 2005-2006 academic year. Her previous experience also includes work for the U.S. State Department, the St. Louis City Mayor's Office and Teach for America.

Editor's note: We've taken the opportunity of Sarah reporting from Rwanda to give you some other views of this amazing place. Josh Ruxin, friend of EGR and administer of the Millennium Villages Project in Mayange, Rwanda, blogs regularly for Nick Kristof of the New York Times and has given us permission to repost ... which we have done below and will continue to do regularly.

Also, click here to download "The Rwanda Cure" from last month's Forbes magazine, that tells more of Josh's work (with great pictures!)

Tomorrow: John Hammock