Wednesday, September 22, 2010
My Beloved Africa
In Stephen Lewis, “Pandemic: My Country Is On Its Knees”, he addresses the appalling gap between vision and current reality of Africa, regarding the HIV/AIDS situation. The purpose of his article was to make the world aware of how HIV/AIDS has affected Africa. This was meant to be seen by anyone and everyone, in hopes of helping the crisis that is decimating Africa.
When reading this article I found that Lewis' conversational style makes for quick and light reading about topics that are quite heavy, as some parts were written so well, I felt as if I had experienced it. I felt he achieved his purpose through detailed examples, “The wards rumbled with low, almost-inaudible moans, as though those who were ill could not summon the strength to give voice to the pain”, and, “The smell was awful: a room of rotting feces and stale urine. And the eyes, so sunken and glazed and pleading”. After reading this, I felt so sad to hear about Stephens personal experience over in Africa. Although, I know that was his not his intended reaction, he just wants to educate people on the reality of what is happening to the people. I found the most effective phrase in this article was when Stephen talked to the PLWA (people living with aids) group and they said how the profit money goes towards coffins because they are in high demand. I found his personal experiences to be quite informative as I have never knew the how families were impacted by the HIV/AIDS crisis. It breaks my heart to read about how 14-year olds have to be in charge because their parents have passed away.
My question to you is, how much higher does the death toll have to increase, before everyone comes together and actually tried to resolve the crisis?
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Good question, hopefully by educating the general public on this issue it might stir the pot enough to a game plan together to mend this wound. I guess the news and media we get in Canada dosent really do it justice and sometimes issues like this need to become a main priority to get the attention it deserves. nice work.
ReplyDeleteOn TV the other night there was a report on how much of your donation goes to actually help a cause. In many cases its was under 15%; the remainder goes to pay costs such as telemarketers, administrators and administrative fees. If this is an accurate report then it'll likely be an amount that cannot be reached. How unfortunate. I think organizations like Dr. Without Borders, which are directly involved with the communities, will make the greatest impact. They educate which'll slowly help to turn the situation around.
ReplyDeleteI also found that Lewis's conversational style made for much quicker, lighter reading on a very heavy topic. I believe this can help get his message across to many more people. He makes you feel connected to his story.
ReplyDeleteAs for you question, I would love to see people come together in an attempt to solve this crisis. There is definitely an effort happening but it needs to be a much, much higher priority.
Hi Serena,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this thoughtful response to Lewis's article. I like the question you posed. Happily Canada has recently increased its support.
And Harper told the UN, as reported Monday by CBC News, that Canada will increase its contributions to the Global Fund, which fights HIV-AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries. The government says Canada will give $540 million over three years to the fund, which already receives $150 million a year from Canada.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/09/21/un-canada-millennium-development.html#ixzz112FyXgxM