"Waiting" -- by Meredith Bowen

Waiting.

As we wait for the momentous climax of the advent season, many other people sit waiting too.

But not for Christmas.

They wait in line for medication. ARV’s. Drugs needed each month in order to delay the effects of the AIDS virus.

Last week I travelled to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I visited an AIDS clinic, where people sat waiting for their medications.

Waiting and waiting.

I met a young Maasai girl who had been waiting for hours. She hadn’t eaten. She hadn’t moved. She lay in the grass, waiting.

She didn’t complain. She didn’t pout or cry. Her courage in the face of a disease that is killing her was astonishing to me.

She reminded me that we are essentially all waiting for the same thing – she for medications, and I for a cure. We both wait for the suffering to end.

Pray this Christmas season for an end to the suffering. For this little girl and for all the others in the world suffering as she is.

Meredith Bowen is an Episcopal young adult living in Tanzania. She has volunteered in Tanzania with the Rift Valley Childrens Village (an orphanage) as well as with the Anglican Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro and the Diocese of Tanga. Started the African Orphan Education Fund to award scholarships for secondary school and university.

"Millennium Development Goal #6 - Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases" - by John G. Miers

"Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people." - Matthew 4:23

Curing every disease and every sickness among the people……

When I read this Bible verse, I naturally thought of my career in the federal service. I worked for the National Institutes of Health for nearly forty years. Others in my family have worked there and some still do. My mother was a nurse. Health is in my family. Health is important to me. When I read the text about “curing EVERY disease” I am stunned as to how large a task that must have been. I am continually overwhelmed by what it must be like to be a member of a medical team in a foreign country. There are so many diseases in evidence. HIV/AIDS and malaria are cited in this goal, but so are “other diseases.”

Other diseases, too. There are infectious diseases, life-threatening diseases, disfiguring diseases, childhood diseases, easily diagnosed diseases, hard-to-diagnose ones, visible ones, and invisible ones. How do we prioritize just what to treat? How are conditions different in developing countries? What can we do here in the developed world to try to assist others? I still am astounded that the Millennium Development Goals were agreed to in 2000 by 189 heads of state and government -- including the United States. This was in response to the deepest material brokenness in the world today. Poverty the likes of which we just don't see within the United States. Poverty levels that lead to a child under 5 dying every three seconds from preventable, treatable causes, and 8,000 people (more than died in the September 11 attacks) dying each day of HIV/AIDS.

When I visit doctors here in the US I always give thanks for what we have here for our medical care. But I also worry about what other people don’t have. This is why this is such a crucial MDG goal. Medical care must be made available in all parts of the world. This is not a complicated project, but it is both expensive and hard to attain. I think of invisible diseases. These are the really tricky set of those “other diseases.” These include addictions, mental illness, heart disease, diabetes, malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies, and other illnesses and disorders that often go unnoticed by both the patients and medical staff. Each can lead to long-term illness and incapacitation, but medical teams often have their hands full with the gruesome and visible disabilities. All must be addressed.

The MDGs seek to provide treatment to all people in the developing world who suffer from these diseases, both visible and invisible. Jesus healed “every disease and sickness.” We can do no less. Jesus was obviously capable of doing this; we need to provide needed resources so his example can be followed.

John Miers is from Bethesda, Maryland, where he was employed at the National Institutes of Health from 1968 to 2005. He serves on the board of St. Luke’s House, a halfway house for persons recovering from mental illness and also serves as Jubilee Officer for the Diocese of Washington. He is a member of National Commission on Science, Technology and Faith for the Episcopal Church and is active in his local church, where he is in the choir, worship committee, pastoral care committee, and the prayer team, and he also visits patients in a local hospital on behalf of the Chaplain.

Got Cents? Raising AIDS Awareness One Penny at a Time

The numbers associated with the Millennium Development Goals are so big, dealing with them usually means one of two things. Either we have to break them down into smaller units we can understand (like the popsicle stick cross showing how many children die of extreme poverty in 6 hours)...

...or take it head on and show how immense the number really is.

That's the Got Cents? approach.

Got Cents? is collecting 19 million pennies - one for every person estimated to have died of HIV/AIDS in Africa through 2007 -- to display on World AIDS Day, December 1.

So far, they have collected 6.1 million ... the number who have died of HIV/AIDS in Africa since the last presidential election. Right now, they're on display in the form of a giant AIDS ribbon at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Next week, they'll be in Minneapolis for the Republican National Convention.

Got Cents? is coordinating this effort with the ONE Campaign, which is also sponsoring AIDS caregiver kit assembly events at each convention. Yesterday, 1,500 kits were assembled in just ONE HOUR!

Check out the entries on the ONE blog about the caregiver kit assembly event and the Got Cents display.

Find out how to donate your pennies, learn about the AIDS charities the pennies will eventually go to, and other ways to help at the Got Cents? website.

"House Passes Broader Plan to Fight HIV/AIDS" -- by the Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Thursday to triple financing to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world, giving new life and new punch to a program credited with saving or prolonging millions of lives in Africa alone.

The 303-to-115 vote sends the bill to President Bush for his signature. Mr. Bush, who first floated the idea of a campaign against AIDS in his 2003 State of the Union address, supports the five-year, $48 billion plan.

The passage of the bill was a rare instance of cooperation between the White House and the Democrat-controlled Congress. It was “born out of a willingness to work together and put the United States on the right side of history when it comes to this global pandemic,” said Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California, a leader on the issue.

The current $15 billion act, which expires at the end of September, has helped bring lifesaving antiretroviral drugs to about 1.7 million people and supported care for nearly 7 million. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as Pepfar, has won plaudits from some of Mr. Bush’s harshest critics.

Representative Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the United States “has given hope to millions infected with H.I.V., which just a few years ago was tantamount to a death sentence.” H.I.V. is the virus that causes AIDS.

According to a study by Unaids and the Kaiser Family Foundation, the United States provided one-fifth of AIDS financing from all sources — governments, international aid groups and the private sector — in 2007. Of the $4.9 billion disbursed in 2007 from the Group of 8 countries, Europe and other donor governments, about 40 percent came from the United States.

Read the whole story here.

PEPFAR Passes the Senate 80-16!

Here's the latest good news from the ONE Campaign blog (www.one.org/blog).
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After weeks of ONE Campaign members relentlessly writing and calling their senators, and great work by so many partner organizations, we’ve successfully unstuck billions of dollars in AIDS, TB and malaria!

We dodged several potentially devastating amendments over the last 2 days - pieces of legislation that would have put millions of lives at risk. We did lose one amendment-fight, however, so the total funding for PEPFAR for the next five years will now be $48 billion, instead of the original $50 billion.

After last night's Senate vote, the bill will go back to the House and then onto the president to sign. We are hopeful those processes will be swift.

Given how much we had to fight to reauthorize this bill this year- this is a great victory for us. Thank you to everyone who contacted their members of Congress to pass PEPFAR. Literally, millions of lives will be saved with this funding.

Below, a quote from ONE Campaign Legislative Director Tom Hart (who, BTW, is the former head of the Episcopal Office of Government Relations):

“Even as Americans face serious concerns at home, the Senate has proved America’s commitment to providing lifesaving medicines to the world’s most vulnerable people. PEPFAR is an investment in people around the world; but it is also an example of America’s generosity and a critical piece of American diplomacy. By treating and preventing disease and saving lives, we can help to create more stable communities and a more secure future for Americans.

"Senators Biden, Lugar and Reid are true heroes for their persistence and patience in passing this bill. This legislation received strong support from co-sponsoring Senators on both sides of the aisle, including both Presidential candidates.”

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For something really interesting go here -- and see all the different proposed amendments and their results.

Great work, everyone!!! But there's still more. Our senators need to know when they've done a good job ... and they need to know when we're unhappy with their performance.

Click here to see how your senators voted, then click here to get contact information for your senators, make the call and tell them what you thought of their vote!

"Rwanda out front against HIV/AIDS" -- Dr. Josh Ruxin on CNN's Inside Africa

In this clip from CNN's Inside Africa, EGR friend Josh Ruxin explains why Rwanda has such an impressive record in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

"One of the health centers that the Millennium Villages Project is involved in, in Mayange, has done such a great job of improving the quality of health that a woman in the community approached me just last month and said, 'You know, I'm a little bit angry with you. I used to have a job in this community that I don't have anymore.' And I said, 'What exactly is that job?" and she said, "Well I used to coordinate the funerals here, and for the last eight months there hasn't been a single funeral, but just last year I was coordinating three or four funerals every single week."

Josh Ruxin is a Columbia University expert on public health who has spent the last couple of years living in Rwanda, where he administers the Millennium Villages Project in Mayange. He’s an unusual mix of academic expert and mud-between-the-toes aid worker. His regular posts can be found on the blogroll of Nick Kristof of the New York Times, and he has given his permission to be cross-posted here. Josh and EGR executive director Mike Kinman team-teach a global poverty module for Trinity, Wall Street's Clergy Leadership Project.

"Bush, AIDS, business and Africa" -- by Dr. Josh Ruxin

This month, when President Bush traveled to Ghana, Liberia, Tanzania, Benin and Rwanda - the nations on his African itinerary - he visited more than a few AIDS treatment centers. This makes sense: a big reason for the president’s visit was to see firsthand the progress made by the life-saving initiatives he set in motion through his administration’s programs.

More than $19 billion has been invested in programs to fight AIDS, malaria and other killers. More than one million Africans with AIDS have been put on AIDS drugs, and new programs are aggressively treating and preventing malaria, the biggest killer of children under five on the continent. Though more needs to be done going forward, the Bush years have been a time when a foundation was laid for meaningful global public health interventions, and it’s right for the president to see the real impact of the United States dollars on African lives.

While the medicine and care provided by the Bush Administration is indeed important, it is only part of a larger equation. Providing health care support will treat disease, but it can’t eliminate its roots in poverty. Business development can. The more prosperous people are — whether in the United States or sub-Saharan Africa — the less likely they are to contract AIDS.

Rwanda has taken an approach that includes massive health care improvements alongside extraordinary efforts to build the private sector. This approach makes sense: a recent BBC report showed that economic growth does not necessarily improve health. President Kagame — when not pushing health issues — has recently visited far-flung places like the Consumer Electronics Show to drum up investors in Rwanda.

Several months ago, I wrote on my New York Times blog about the need for technology businesses to invest in countries like Rwanda. Among the comments I’d read in response were a few that wondered why in the world we should be worried about that kind of development when providing food and medicine was an infinitely more immediate issue.

The fact is, between providing aid and encouraging business development, you can’t do either exclusively: you must do both. If you only provide medications and food, you may treat disease, but you’ll have to do it over and over again. Adequate AIDS treatment alone might get us to where we were 25 years ago - but on its own does nothing to cultivate economic productivity. AIDS treatment alone fails to address the root causes of disease. In the community of Mayange, Rwanda, a Columbia University project recently rolled out voluntary counseling and testing for AIDS. While the community quickly took advantage of the new service, it was not exactly the talk of the town. Several weeks later, the basket weaving cooperative in Mayange received a purchase order for $2,000 of coasters and placemats. The community has been talking about that ever since.

Encouraging local business, urging international development, teaching micro-finance and building cooperatives does something health care can’t accomplish, something that can lift people out of the cycle of disease and despondency. More than “fighting poverty,” which has always seemed to me to be a goal that’s not ambitious enough, these types of programs can create prosperity. Prosperity is the engine that can pull a whole nation up, and could bring AIDS down to levels you’d find in Europe or the U.S.

So, while President Bush looked at AIDS centers, I hope he also took a close look at the business environment, what his programs have helped bring about, and what more can be done to create more opportunities. If it seems counterintuitive to stress business and prosperity, just think how much easier it would be to get ahead of killers like AIDS if the number of new cases goes from a flood to a trickle.

Josh Ruxin is a Columbia University expert on public health who has spent the last couple of years living in Rwanda, where he administers the Millennium Villages Project in Mayange. He’s an unusual mix of academic expert and mud-between-the-toes aid worker. His regular posts (including this one) can be found on the blogroll of Nick Kristof of the New York Times, and he has given his permission to be cross-posted here. Josh and EGR executive director Mike Kinman team-teach a global poverty module for Trinity, Wall Street's Clergy Leadership Project.

Step by Step: Finding the blessings in the slums of Nairobi

by Reynolds Whalen

As I walked through the streets of Nairobi’s poorest area, the police were pulling electricity out of people’s homes. Local gangs had tapped it illegally from nearby power lines and charged residents to use it. My friend, Fred, advised me to hide my camera as we passed a dump truck full of wires surrounded by a dozen officers donning sleek sunglasses and brandishing fully automatic weapons. The air pulsed with a dangerous tension.

Several minutes after we passed this scene, gunfire erupted behind us, popping like the firecrackers I had watched serenely on a grassy hill in St. Louis weeks earlier for the Fourth of July. Startled, I turned to my friend Fupi for a plan of action and was surprised to find him and Fred laughing.

“Shouldn’t we get out of here?” I asked frantically. They just smiled reassuringly and replied:

“Don’t worry, they’re not aiming at people, they’re shooting into the air.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I can tell by the way it sounds,” replied Fupi.

My immediate thought, and one that still haunts me, was that no one should have to know the difference between the sound of bullets being fired into the air and the sound of bullets being fired into a human body.

Mathare is one of the most neglected areas in Kenya. It is the second largest slum in the country with 700,000 people living on about four or five square miles of land. Like many condensed informal urban settlements in this part of the world, problems of HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, violence, prostitution, early pregnancies, and poor sanitation plague its inhabitants. Visitors to this harsh and violent area often balk with disgust and lament the hopeless conditions of its inhabitants. Over the past year, I have learned to think differently.

During a study abroad program last fall and while conducting research this summer, I worked with a group called Haba na Haba, which means “step by step” in Kiswahili. This is a development agency run entirely by people in the community that empowers youth to change their own difficult situations, using a broad spectrum of performing and visual arts. As an Acting major at Washington University, I found particular interest in the drama group and their stunning community outreaches.

Every weekend, groups of young performing artists pile into vans and drive to nearby informal settlements. Upon arrival, they identify an open area such as a field or courtyard and set up drums. Soon, the air is filled with powerful rhythms and a crowd of hundreds has gathered within 10 or 15 minutes. Then, a group of acrobats performs, creating impressive human structures, doing rope-skipping tricks, and swallowing fire. A team of dancers follows, merging aspects of many Kenyan cultures into one poignant routine that uses specific movements to address important issues in the community. Finally, the drama group enters the space and performs an original short play about a concern affecting that particular area. These topics are carefully selected in weekly rehearsals where members of the drama group brainstorm and use improvisation exercises to form their plays. The actors live in these areas, and thus understand which issues are most important at the time. Due to a high level of illiteracy, education through drama is the most effective way to teach about HIV/AIDS prevention, violence, and drug abuse. Haba na Haba reaches nearly 100,000 people a year with its community outreach program.

In addition to the theatre activities, Haba na Haba has a program called Shootback. This initiative started nearly ten years ago when an American photography student equipped about a dozen Mathare youth with cameras and asked them to take pictures of their daily lives. The result was stunning and produced a beautiful book and photography exhibit that traveled the world for years. Last year, Shootback underwent a similar project where they educated ten local young people about the Millenium Development Goals, then asked them to take pictures of them in the community. The resulting book has raised a considerable amount of money for Haba na Haba and increased international exposure.

The Shootback that exists today is run entirely by the original youth and seeks to capture a life that is horribly misrepresented in the national and international media. Journalists and reporters only venture to Mathare when something terrible happens. Therefore, we get the image with which we are all so familiar: starving babies, crumbling homes, uncontrollable violence, towering trash heaps, etc. We never hear about the talented football team that won an international tournament in Norway, the local furniture business that successfully put a bright student through college, the thousands of Mathare residents commuting six hours a day to central Nairobi, or the Mathare kid who became an important United Nations consultant. These stories are not told, so Shootback makes it their mission to tell them.

Recently, Shootback developed a program called Slum T.V. where they spend all week in the community, interviewing people about their businesses and shooting footage of important events. On selected weekends, they have a showing on a large screen in a popular Mathare field, highlighting slum life and the significant contributions of its residents. These bright young adults have reacted to a life of extreme poverty and marginalization by re-claiming agency and changing the community from the inside.

Supporting the MDGs should be central to our lives as Americans and Christians. But when you plan on giving, carefully consider why you are doing it and where your money is going. Resist the temptation to feel you are somehow solving “third world” problems or saving helpless African children. Our role as the church and as a global community is not to “save” anyone. Our role is to share the love of Christ by offering all that we can, while thanking God for the innumerable blessings granted to us.

When you donate 0.7% of your income, know that your money does not have to go to huge organizations like the United Nations or USAID. There are countless movements and groups like Haba na Haba doing incredible work every day. Be creative. Think locally. Find someone who has traveled in developing countries and ask how you can be involved. Participating in the MDGs should not be a passive activity. Take ownership of your ministry and seek to be like Christ, constantly seeking the best way to serve others and share a message of undying love.

Reynolds Whalen is a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, has traveled extensively in Kenya, Uganda, and Sudan. He spent fall semester 2006 in Kenya working with Haba na Haba in Mathare -- read his blog on it here and is working on a documentary film on that experience.

Tomorrow: The Rev. Becca Stevens