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Developing
Grassroots AIDS Education Flying into New York City in the early morning of September 11th, I was eager to be home after a full seventeen days attendance at the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. The New York skyline caught majestically in golden rays of the sunrise was my familiar welcome home sign. Shortly after I landed and arrived home an unimaginable hell broke loose and the skyline forever changed. I heard about the attack while unpacking my suitcase. I was holding a note from Happiness, a young South African girl whose work I continue to hold tight to while facing a much different future than imagined before September 11, 2001.
When I was attending the non-governmental (NGO) and governmental UN conferences, I found myself constantly apologizing, saying, "Excuse me" and "I am sorry." Although I believe in being polite, my behavior was exaggerated until I realized I was apologizing for existing, for being white. I was apologizing for my race and its practice of genocide, slavery, the dehumanization of other cultures, colonization, the failure to care for the starving and refugees, hoarding wealth, and being a part of a world system that fails to see that it is slowly destroying the life support systems of the planet. Not only was I not resented, I was welcomed as one of many Americans attending the two conferences. I very much belonged to this very diverse world community. The UN Conference outdid my expectations for its success. Thousands of people from around the world put together two important documents, one the NGO and the other the governmental document. Now, if we, the peoples of the world, will take these seriously and work together to carry them out, our actions will indeed be our salvation. Gender equality was addressed throughout as well as economics, sustainable development, education, health care, employment, and the freedom of self-determination and respect for all cultures. One of the many personal complaints voiced at the conference, besides the long registration lines, concerned the hotel accommodations. I stayed at the Star Lodge in Pinetown, about twenty minutes drive from Durban, as part of the AFR-US AIDS Coalition. Now that we can look back, we have many hilarious stories. The Coalition was a group of African and US women. We shared beds, sheets, hot water, and stories. Top sheets were a scarcity, and some had to sleep three to a room with one sleeping on a mattress on the floor. We put on workshops and made new connections with African and US women and men, many of whom joined AFR-US AIDS after learning about our work.
The second week I stayed in a Catholic convent and was treated so well that the first week’s inconveniences faded into memory. I was also able, through Ilitha Labantu, a South African women’s organization, to visit a rural village and a high school. The school has from 60 to 90 children in a classroom. Eleventh and twelfth graders sit three to a bench; no books, but school lessons that are written on the black board. The students were exemplary in their behavior, showing respect for their teachers and one another. The school buildings were inadequate in providing a warm shelter in the winter or a cool place during the days of heat. No food was served, only water was provided. Many children walked as far as fifteen kilometers to and from school, leaving by 4 a.m. in the morning and arriving home after dark. They were bright, beautiful in appearance and full of hope. When talking to the teachers after visiting the classrooms, we were told that the AIDS pandemic was especially prevalent in their area. Their community had been the battleground for warring political parties and unemployment was around 70%. The most chilling thing we discussed was that these beautiful young adults were engaged in recreational sex, which is the norm, and no one on staff was telling them about AIDS prevention. The reason stated was they did not have an expert or an AIDS counselor. We pleaded for them to learn more about the pandemic, especially the biology teacher, and to tell the students the facts. They said they were waiting for an expert. During my stay at the Sisters of St. Francis convent, I was hanging up my laundry on the outside clothesline one morning, and two schoolgirls struck up a conversation with me. They attended the Catholic school next to the convent. Happiness, the largest in size and the oldest having just turned 13, asked me if I would get them pen pals back in the US. I said yes, and every morning, one of the sisters of the convent would come and get me and tell me "Happy" and her friends were at the door and would like to talk to me. Through the course of the week, I had given them information about our Africa/US Women’s Partnership to Stop HIV/AIDS Pandemic. AFR-US AIDS represents a broad coalition of faith-based and grassroots women’s organizations and UN agencies in Africa and the US. Our mission is to get resources to grassroots women’s organizations on the ground to do HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. It is a partnership of mutuality, working together and pooling information and resources. We also monitor where the AIDS money is going, directing as much as possible to the grassroots. Now, I did not tell them all this, I just handed them a piece of paper which had our mission and guiding principles. Another day I gave them the Global Education Associates’ Millionth Circle brochure. This tells of the international initiative to create, sustain and connect a million circles around the world by the year 2005. Saturday, the day I was leaving for an overnight trip to visit the AIDS orphanage run by the sisters, Happy and five other girls asked to see me. This morning they said they had something very special to show me. The first was a piece of paper with the name of a circle group. They had formed a circled called the AIDS Defenders. Their six names were on the paper as members of the circle. My colleague and roommate, Carmen Castro, asked them who was the leader, and they said very emphatically that they all were. They than showed us a single sheet of school notebook paper with carefully printed instructions on what is AIDS, how do you get it, and what can you do to prevent it. "Condomise" was a word they used to "protect yourself." They asked me: What can they do now? I said: Encourage as many circles as possible with other girls and boys. And to take this to their villages when they went home, and create circles there. They were very excited about this and quite eager to get started.
I have no doubt in my mind that Happiness and the other five 12- and 13-year olds are helping to form circles. They did not stop to wait for an expert. They created a circle and wrote the AIDS prevention information together, and now are telling others. They are leading the way, and by doing so are stopping the needless deaths from AIDS because of ignorance, or from adults remaining silent. Julie Okine is Coordinator of the Women of Vision program of the Anglican Church of West Africa and a key partner in the AFR-US AIDS coalition. At the AIDS workshop that we held during the UN Conference, she stated that it was ignorance that was killing the people of Africa. She has developed a grassroots HIV/AIDS program which she and her many volunteers from all faith traditions are bringing to as many churches and communities as possible. Julie is now training youth AIDS counselors. If enough people would form circles of courage, circles of peace, circles of compassion, circles of diversity, circles of love and caring where every human life is sacred, we could transform the many forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. If we, like Happiness, formed anti-racism defender circles and used the UN documents as our mission and guiding principles, we could have a world of justice and peace.
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Ann
Smith is Executive Director of