Tears and Joys: World AIDS Day 2006
Africare Commemorates Nearly 20 Years of HIV/AIDS Assistance to Africa

WASHINGTON, DC, December 1, 2006 — At 12 noon on Friday, December 1, the lobby of Africare House in downtown Washington, D.C., filled with people who told stories of remembrance through pieces of fabric — contributions to Africare’s AIDS Memorial Quilt — testimonies to lives affected by HIV/AIDS or lost to AIDS. A candlelight ceremony followed, during which participants spoke the names they so movingly represented in the quilt. The event was in honor of World AIDS Day 2006.

“The idea really is two-fold,” commented Dr. Kechi Anah, Africare’s HIV/AIDS technical specialist and originator of the Africare’s AIDS Memorial Quilt. “This quilt, it’s a comforter; it stands for warmth and represents the work that we do here every day. Secondly, we’re trying to put a face to HIV/AIDS. Normally you have all those numbers — 10,000, 20,000 affected by HIV or AIDS — they’re just numbers. Each piece of fabric in this quilt represents one individual person. That’s really moving.”

For the staff at Africare, World AIDS Day — celebrated every year on December 1st — is more than a day to unite and educate the world about a growing pandemic; it symbolizes the assistance work carried out by Africare in Africa 365 days a year. The work began with Africare’s first HIV/AIDS programs in 1987, shortly after the epidemic began.

The December 2006 UNAIDS report declared 39.5 million cases of HIV/AIDS cases around the globe. That same report noted that 62% of those cases are in Sub-Saharan Africa. While those statistics apply largely to the adult population, there is a strong and growing concern for a new generation of orphaned children who must assume the responsibility of mother and father once a parent dies of AIDS.

“Normally, I don’t have time to rest and study like others,” said 16-year-old Mussa of the Kondoa district in Tanzania. Musa and three younger sisters live with their older sister, her husband and her three children. Before his school received a block grant from one of Africare’s development programs, COPE (Community Based Orphan Care, Protection and Empowerment), Mussa was working as a laborer to assist his sister with basic household income. School was only a distant dream.

“Just because one person was born somewhere and doesn’t have the same opportunities that we do here in D.C., that doesn’t mean they don’t have a right to education, clothing, shelter… not all kids have these things,” said Health Program Manager Melissa Kadzik.

Programs like COPE work to alleviate the disparities of wealth and opportunity felt by African nations. The program began in 2005 to reduce the socioeconomic stress placed on a million AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children displaced throughout Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda by year 2010. The project has since delivered a combination of psychological, educational and health/nutritional support to almost 125,000 children and 13,000 of their caregivers — all in just 20 months. Mussa was one of 50 children to receive an educational fee waiver after COPE donated money to his secondary school. His story is one of the many positive stories that Africare has to tell.

The story lies closer to home for Almustaphael Al-Kahli-Bey, human resources associate at Africare. At the December 1 ceremony at Africare House, he remembered two close friends whom he lost to AIDS. He says he garners strength by remembering an African proverb, “As long as you can mention a person’s name, they don’t die.”

People, memories and a desire for change… all woven together, at Africare, in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

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