Canadians encouraged to embrace AIDS relief
GATINEAU, QC—At a recent conference focusing on AIDS in Africa, government, medical and ministry officials from Canada, the U.S. and Africa came together to discuss how Canadians have a significant role to play in addressing the pandemic.
Health Partners International Canada, a Montreal-based humanitarian aid organization, hosted "AIDS in Africa: Engaging Canadians" May 2-3 in Gatineau, Quebec. The event drew more than 100 medical and ministry participants, as well as government officials including Keith Martin, parliamentary secretary to the Canadian Minister of National Defence, and Peter Ogego, Kenya's high commissioner to Canada.
Several prominent experts in areas such as pharmaceuticals, research centres and key Canadian AIDS clinics led workshops, and addressed issues such as the spread and management of the disease and the search for cures. AIDS workers shared personal experiences, giving a face to the crisis and adding a sense of urgency to the search for solutions.
Elizabeth Hynd, a doctor working with AIDS orphans at the New Hope Center in Swaziland, says the devastation caused by AIDS is particularly hard on grandparents and children.
"In some villages, we have seen an entire generation of adults wiped out by the disease. We have gone into communities where hundreds of children are completely abandoned and fending for themselves," she says. "It was like [the book] The Lord of the Flies. In some areas we support one or two people of grandparent age who are caring alone for dozens of children because the intermediate generation has been wiped out."
While caring directly for a growing number of AIDS orphans who live in their vicinity, the New Hope Center is also helping to promote and start programs in other areas.
Ezekiel Mafusire works with the Salvation Army Masiye Camps in Zimbabwe. "Most of our campers, some as young as four or five years old, have already seen their families devastated by AIDS," he says. "We do the typical camp stuff from sports to campfires and crafts, but also personal hygiene and health issues related to AIDS keep coming up. And bereavement counseling is woven into the chapel program."
While most Canadians are too far away to adopt 20 children orphaned by AIDS, as Hynd has done, Chuck Stephens, founder of the Pan-East Coast AIDS Network in Africa, says Canadian Christians can still pray and give generously to programs addressing AIDS in Africa.
"It begins with prayer and then teaches a different level of compassion to Canadian Christians who are still far too inwardly focused," says Stephens. "[If we] dress down a little and skip lunch once in a while, we can afford to help more. Real compassion [means we] feel someone else's pain."
Allan Ronald, an AIDS specialist retired from the University of Manitoba and now active in training medical personnel at Uganda's key teaching university, says that most often compassionate links between people begins with compassionate links between churches.
He cites one church in Winnipeg that twinned with an African church in the middle of the AIDS crisis zone. There are a number of exchanges between the two churches and for a few weeks each year the two churches trade pastors.
Participants also urged more government action. Norman Neilsen, administrative coordinator for FEB International, says, "We need to continue lighting the fire under our government to make them realize that AIDS is not a matter of long range planning. It is an immediate, urgent crisis. They need to immediately open doors to resources and help which Canadians want to contribute."
Nielsen and Stephens both underscore the need for qualified professional personnel to deal with the AIDS crisis in Africa, compounded by the educated Africans—engineers, doctors, medical staff—who are emigrating and leaving huge gaps.
Nielsen suggests that "for every doctor from a Third World country that comes to Canada, we [might] send two or three back. As this very educated generation of Canadians begin to examine the possibilities of early retirement, some need to think not only what early retirement can do for them, but what it might allow them to do for others in need."
Dear Readers:
ChristianWeek relies on your generous support. please take a minute and donate to help give voice to stories that inform, encourage and inspire.
Donations of $20 or more will receive a charitable receipt.Thank you, from Christianweek.
