by Alison Fraser | Dec 1, 2014 | Africa, AIDS, Canada, Family, Health, Human Rights, Humanity, Nancy Sumari, ONE, Social Good, World Voice
I am by no means an expert on HIV or AIDS. In fact, other than knowing some basic statistics and facts on transmission, I have never really given much thought to the social implications of living with the virus. This wasn’t intentional, but most likely the result of the small bubble in which I was living for most of my life; a bubble that did not include any friends or family directly affected by the virus. That all changed, last November, when I visited Arusha, Tanzania to meet some of the students in the Mom2Mom Africa Organization, a small not for profit that I founded several years before. I knew some of our students came from families in which some members were positive. Some were left orphaned by the disease. But what I didn’t realize was how this impacted these children in terms of treatment by their local community, regardless of their HIV status. I learned of children who were shunned by the church because the deaths of their parents was attributed to AIDS. I learned of other families shunned by their own relatives for the same reason. In some instances, the children were not even aware of why their parents died. It was hidden to protect them.
I left Tanzania with a heavy heart, but it was made heavier by the stories of the struggles of some of our students because of the AIDS pandemic. I had suspected that discrimination existed but I now had little faces associated with that discrimination haunting me, making it more real. Students are accepted into Mom2Mom Africa regardless of HIV status…I can think of operating no other way. In fact, we only request medical information so we can provide the appropriate health care.
I was now beginning to understand that this virus was not only killing people, but leaving behind families to deal with the shameful treatment by society.
Our affected students not only required extra medical attention, but also more emotional support.
I began to wonder if those affected by HIV/AIDS in Canada feel the same degree of isolation. Did being HIV positive in Canada carry with it the same stigma as in Tanzania? I decided to find out. Speaking to the AIDS Committee of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo & Area (ACCKWA), I learned that, unfortunately, Canadians often face the same discrimination and stigma. Although laws are in place to help prevent discrimination, it still occurs. Many of those affected by HIV are judged, and often blamed for their HIV status. Thankfully, there are support groups such as the ACCKWA that provide a safe place and much-needed services to those living with HIV in our local community.
After speaking to ACCKWA, I contacted my friend, and fellow World Moms Blog contributor, Nancy Sumari to discuss what support services are in place for those living with HIV, and their families, in Tanzania. Nancy is part of the “I am Positive” Campaign in Tanzania. The campaign was established in response to reports by those living with HIV of being discriminated against and, in some cases, being physically assaulted and emotionally abused because of their HIV status. The campaign has several main objectives, but the one that hit home the most was:
“To live with HIV/AIDS is NOT to live without human rights and dignity”.
The power of that message is not only incredible, but universal. Regardless of what country you live in, what part of the world you live in, and what your HIV status is, you have the right to basic human rights and to live with dignity. We ALL deserve this.
As I reflect on this past year, and what I have learned about the realities those living with HIV face each and every day, I can’t help but dream of a day when the stigma no longer exists; a day when judgement and discrimination are replaced with support and understanding. Or better yet, I dream of a day when HIV and AIDS move from pandemic status to curable infection. But, until then, I hope that empathy prevails for all those living with HIV, as well as for their families.
This is an original post written by Alison Fraser for World Moms Blog.
Alison Fraser is the mother of three young girls ranging in age from 5 to 9 years old. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Alison works as an Environmental Toxicologist with a human environment consulting company and is an active member of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). She is also the founder and director of the Canadian Not for Profit Organization, Mom2Mom Africa, which serves to fund the school fees of children and young women in rural Tanzania. Recently recognized and awarded a "Women of Waterloo Region" award, Alison is very involved in charitable events within her community including Christmas Toy and School Backpack Drives for the local foodbank.
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by Nicole Melancon (USA) | Sep 2, 2014 | Africa, AIDS, Human Rights, Social Good, Third Eye Mom, World Voice
It was a late afternoon in June when Elizabeth Atalay and I, both fellows in Ethiopia with the International Reporting Project, arrived at the nondescript gates of AHOPE for Children on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. The clouds had yet to open up and lash out in their daily angry downpour. But we knew it was coming soon for it was rainy season in Ethiopia.
I had anticipated this meeting for a long time and was a bit nervous about the world I’d see behind those gates. I had heard about AHOPE for Children after reading the powerful true story of Haregewoin Teferra, a middle class Ethiopia woman who dared to help the growing number of abandoned and orphaned children at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in her country. Award-wining journalist Melissa Fay Greene’s book, “There is No Me Without You” opened my eyes and my heart to the difficult lives of orphaned HIV-positive children and now Elizabeth and I were going to meet some of them.
The impact of HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia is nothing short of heartbreaking. It were statistics like these below that inspired Greene to research the plight of HIV/AIDS orphans in Ethiopia and let the tragedy be known.
Per the United Nations, in 2000 Africa was “a continent of orphans.” HIV and acquired AIDS had killed more than 21 million people, including 4 million children. More than 13 million children had been orphaned, 12 million of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. 25% of those lived in 2 countries: Nigeria and Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, 11% of the children were orphans.
Reading the heart-wrentching stories of the children in Greene’s book left me feeling awfully sad. Yet towards the end of her book, in 2005, the plight of adults and children impacted by HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia and the rest of the developing world changed. Antri-retrovirals (ARVs) which had been widely available in the Western, wealthiest world, had now become available in poorer countries like Ethiopia. The meaning of being HIV positive changed from being a death sentence to a hope to live.
Mengesha, the Director of AHOPE Ethiopia with some of the children.
AHOPE for Children was founded over ten years ago by American Kathy Olsen as an American non-profit charity to assist in the funding of a home for HIV positive children in Ethiopia. AHOPE stands for “African HIV Orphans: Project Embrace” and is the only orphanage in Ethiopia that solely cares for HIV positive children. AHOPE for Children and AHOPE Ethiopia are two separate organizations (AHOPE is based in the US and AHOPE Ethiopia is an Ethiopian non-profit organization) working together to help children with HIV/AIDS. The role of AHOPE for Children is to raise money to support AHOPE Ethiopia; AHOPE Ethiopia is the day to day caring and programs for all of the kids.
AHOPE Ethiopia runs children’s homes, Little AHOPE for younger children, Family Group Homes for older kids, Youth Transition Homes for young adults, and community outreach programs for children impacted by HIV/AIDS. The sole mission of AHOPE is to provide these children with a loving, supportive “family” and prepare them for an independent future while also providing care for HIV.
Mengesha, AHOPE Ethiopia’s Director smiles for the camera.
Elizabeth and I met with Mengesha, the Director of AHOPE Ethiopia, at the Little AHOPE compound which is home to 27 children. Currently there are 95 children in AHOPE Ethiopia homes and over 100 children receiving support through AHOPE’s community outreach program.
We entered Little AHOPE to the sounds of children playing outside and were met by several smiles and giggles perhaps a reaction to our blond hair and light skin. At first glance, these children didn’t seem any different than our own. They were playing, singing, jumping and vying for our attention. Yet each one of these children were different as they are all HIV positive, fighting other related illnesses and orphaned.
Our first hour at AHOPE was spent speaking with Mengesha, who has worked at AHOPE for several years and has recently become AHOPE Ethiopia’s Director. Mengesha is a warm, loving man who is passionate about AHOPE and the children. Most of the children at AHOPE are either single or double orphans who have tragically watched one or more parent die from AIDS and has been abandoned with no family member willing or able to care for them. These children have the extra burden of being HIV positive meaning they have many special needs.
AHOPE has a loving, fully trained staff of nurses, pediatricians, care-givers and social workers who ensure each child gets the individual attention, love and care they need. AHOPE aims to provide the children with a sense of belonging to a family and as the children grow, they transition to Family Group Homes. The Family Group Homes are community-based homes run by a “mother” and “auntie” where the kids are integrated into the community. The children attend school, receive their necessary medications, go on field trips and do almost everything else a healthy child would do. Once a child becomes an adult, they move to a Youth Transition Home that prepares 18-24 year olds with independent living.
After Mengesha concluded his overview on AHOPE, it was time for a tour of the home and to meet the children. At first the children were a little bit shy around us however their shyness quickly disappeared as soon as Elizabeth took out her Polaroid camera. The children loved having their photos taken and printed out for them to keep, right before their eyes! Elizabeth was very busy as a queue had formed of excited kids wanting their turn behind the camera.
Meanwhile I got to talk with some of the children and learn about their hopes and dreams. Many of the children had high hopes for their future and all of them wanted to make something out of their life. One teenager said she dreamed of becoming a doctor and helping care for kids like her. HIV positive. Another young boy dreamed of being a teacher. Thankfully, with AHOPE these children all have a hope for the future and an opportunity to be who they want to be.
Some facts on HIV/AIDS and Ethiopia:
▪ An estimated 33.3 million people worldwide are infected with HIV/AIDS.
▪ In 2009, 1.8 million people died due to HIV/AIDS, and another 2.6 mil-lion were newly infected.
▪ More than 68 percent (approximately 22.5 million people) of those infected are in sub-Saharan Africa.
▪ Worldwide, 2.5 million children under 15 are living with HIV/AIDS, and 370,000 were newly infected in 2009.
These are just some of the staggering statistics on the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Estimates indicate that in 2009 in Ethiopia approximately 1.1 million people were living with HIV, with a prevalence rate of about 2.3 percent.
Children in Ethiopia are also profoundly affected by HIV/AIDS. In 2009, nearly 73,000 children under age 15 were living with HIV.
Source: AHOPE for Children
Interested in learning more? Here are some excellent resources:
▪ AHOPE for Children’s website
▪ “There is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue her Country’s Children” by Melissa Fay Greene (This book not only tells the true story of Haregewoin Teferra, it also documents some of the believed scientific origins of AIDS, the development and distribution of ARVs, and the plight of AIDS orphans in Ethiopia. It is an excellent book).
▪ A fascinating documentary that can be watched for free over the internet: “And the Band Played On” again documents the discovery of AIDS, the appallingly delayed reaction to do anything, the development of ARVs and the spread of AIDS throughout the world to become one of the worst epidemics Africa has ever seen.
Author Nicole Melancon was in Ethiopia in June as a reporting fellow with the International Reporting Project.
Third Eye Mom is a stay-at-home mom living in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her two children Max (6) and Sophia (4). Her children keep her continually busy and she is constantly amazed by the imagination, energy and joy of life that they possess! A world wanderer at heart, she has also been fortunate to have visited over 30 countries by either traveling, working, studying or volunteering and she continues to keep on the traveling path.
A graduate of French and International Relations from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where she met her husband Paul, she has always been a Midwest gal living in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Chicago. This adventurous mom loves to be outside doing anything athletic (hiking, running, biking, skiing, snowshoeing or simply enjoying nature), to travel and volunteer abroad, to write, and to spend time with her beloved family and friends.
Her latest venture involves her dream to raise enough money on her own to build and open a brand-new school in rural Nepal, and to teach her children to live compassionately, open-minded lives that understand different cultures and the importance of giving back to those in need. Third Eye Mom believes strongly in the value of making a difference in the world, no matter how small it may be. If there is a will, there is a way, and that anything is possible (as long as you set your heart and mind to it!).
Visit her on her blog, Thirdeyemom, where she writes about her travels and experiences in other lands!
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by Jennifer Burden | Jan 16, 2014 | 2014, Social Good, World Moms Blog, World Voice
So what kind of impact can you make with a Twitter party for social good?
Last night, after our #Moms4MDGs chat, we ran a TweetReach report.
In the past week, our collaborative efforts under the #Moms4MDGs hashtag have reached over 1.1 million Twitter accounts and made over 5.8 million Twitter impressions. There were also 160 contributors to the hashtag and 569 retweets. Tweeters from North America, South America, Europe and Africa joined in!
The #Moms4MDGs campaign was announced last July at the BlogHER conference’s International Activist’s Panel by World Moms Blog Senior Editor, Purnima Ramakrishnan, in Chicago, Illinois, USA. We were answering the call to action to keep moms engaged with the world’s goals on topics such as eradicating extreme poverty and empowering women and girls. There are 8 Millennium Development Goals, and we have been covering one per month and have teamed up with a different organization each month that works year-round toward a particular goal.
The topic of yesterday’s #Moms4MDGs chats was on the UN’s Millennium Development Goal #6, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. The key to tackling the world’s most pressing problems is teamwork. In the first party, we were joined by cohosts, Multicultural Kid Blogs, InCulture Parent Magazine, Girls Globe and our featured organization of the month, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who tweeted from @gateshealth.
World Moms Blog and our contributors got the party started by welcoming guests!
Then we passed the baton to cohost Multicultural Kid Blogs, who educated us on the targets for HIV/AIDS and statistics on progress and what still needs to and can be done to fight the disease.
(By the way, the answer is c.)
This was a very popular and important tweet from the HIV/AIDS discussion:
Next, the baton was passed to cohost InCulture Parent Magazine, who announced the targets for malaria, the seriousness of the disease, and what can be done to help.
The UN Foundation and their campaign, Nothing But Nets, entered the twitter feed, which was really helpful to the conversation.
And the smart people chimed in!
Great tweets on malaria from the PM chat:
Some moms were already connecting with Nothing But Nets during the chat about getting their children involved in #MDG6! (This made us feel great!!)
And more great conversations!
And…
Then, cohost Girls Globe took the baton and asked the party some powerful questions to stir up ideas and action towards #MDG6.
The Shot@Life campaign was also present and invited people to join them in the fight against disease and to become a Shot@Life champion when Girls Globe asked how moms of the world could get involved to reach #MDG6 goals.
And Girls Globe brought up tech and MDG goals!
Our interview was cut short during the first party with @gateshealth, but it left everyone something to come back for later that evening! Later, we learned how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation came about and more about their global blog, Impatient Optimists.
And, they provided a mind-blowing statistic on polio, given that India was just declared polio-free for 3 years in a row this week.
But, perhaps, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s biggest, most powerful message on #MDG6 was this:
With two months still left in the 8 month #Moms4MDGs campaign, we are thrilled about how much MDG8, a global partnership for development, has played a role in all the parties throughout. World Moms Blog is proud to be meeting interesting people on Twitter, connecting with other websites geared up to make a difference and partnering and featuring foundations that are making year-long contributions to the vital goals to end extreme poverty and increase global health that the world has set.
Our next twitter party takes place on February, 15th, 2014 on MDG7, the environment from 1-2pm EST. We hope you will come out and join the momentum. Mark your calendars…!
This is an original post by World Moms Blog Founder, Jennifer Burden in New Jersey, USA.
Photo credits to the author.
Jennifer Burden is the Founder and CEO of World Moms Network, an award winning website on global motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. World Moms Network writes from over 30 countries, has over 70 contributors and was listed by Forbes as one of the “Best 100 Websites for Women”, named a “must read” by The New York Times, and was recommended by The Times of India.
She was also invited to Uganda to view UNICEF’s family health programs with Shot@Life and was previously named a “Global Influencer Fellow” and “Social Media Fellow” by the UN Foundation. Jennifer was invited to the White House twice, including as a nominated "Changemaker" for the State of the World Women Summit. She also participated in the One Campaign’s first AYA Summit on the topic of women and girl empowerment and organized and spoke on an international panel at the World Bank in Washington, DC on the importance of a universal education for all girls. Her writing has been featured by Baby Center, Huffington Post, ONE.org, the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life, and The Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists.” She is currently a candidate in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in the Executive Masters of Public Affairs program, where she hopes to further her study of global policies affecting women and girls.
Jennifer can be found on Twitter @JenniferBurden.
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by World Moms Blog | Mar 10, 2013 | Girls, Health, Kids, Older Children, Sex, Social Good, Womanhood, Women's Rights, World Voice, Younger Children
HIV/AIDS affects millions of women and girls in the United States, and many more across the world. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost one-quarter of the teens and adults diagnosed with HIV in the United States each year are women — yet many women and girls may not be aware of their risk of getting HIV.
That’s why the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health will sponsor the eighth annual National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on March 10, 2013. This year, participants are invited to “Share Knowledge. Take Action.”
National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day seeks to galvanize the women, public health advocates, and communities fighting this disease. By hosting the observance with partners across the country, the Office on Women’s Health aims to offer support and hope, reduce the stigma of HIV, and empower women and girls to take positive actions like getting tested, seeking treatment, educating their peers, and preventing new infections.
Below are a few ways that you can participate and make your voice heard. (more…)
World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children.
World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.
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by Alison Fraser | Dec 14, 2012 | Africa, Being Thankful, Canada, Communication, Culture, Family, Friendship, Girls, Human Rights, Humanity, Inspirational, International, Kenya, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, Philanthropy, Social Good, World Motherhood, World Voice, Younger Children
Teddy Bear Picnic Fundraiser
Global awareness has been identified, by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, as key to the success of today’s young people. I have always prided myself on my commitment to raising my three young daughters to understand the challenges that people all over the world face on a daily basis. Despite my best efforts, I felt like I was failing. Of no fault of their own, given their young ages, I felt that they were slowly being swallowed up by a world driven, at times, by materialism and egocentrism. As their mom, I knew it was my responsibility to raise them as globally aware citizens. But how?
The major stumbling block at the time was their young age. How would I ever manage to teach my daughters to be empathetic when they were all under the age of 6! After much thought, I realized that the only way to accomplish this was to truly involve them in the process right from the start. So, no fancy and sophisticated fundraisers, no black tie events, no galas…but a teddy bear picnic: absolutely! (more…)
Alison Fraser is the mother of three young girls ranging in age from 5 to 9 years old. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Alison works as an Environmental Toxicologist with a human environment consulting company and is an active member of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). She is also the founder and director of the Canadian Not for Profit Organization, Mom2Mom Africa, which serves to fund the school fees of children and young women in rural Tanzania. Recently recognized and awarded a "Women of Waterloo Region" award, Alison is very involved in charitable events within her community including Christmas Toy and School Backpack Drives for the local foodbank.
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