World Aids Day

World Aids Day 2009
This picture was taken at a World Aids Day event in 2007 where I went as part of Living Hope's team to join the False Bay College program. Today for World AIDS Day I was busy preparing for our Evangeline graduation on Saturday. I did wear a red jacket however. Cape Town itself had other things on its mind., like the 2010 World Cup. On Friday is the World Cup Draw festival. Yes things are heating up. For all that, HIV and AIDS was not at all shortchanged, and especially by the government. Two years ago, there was, among people who work with HIV and AIDS, such an air of gloom and doom, partly because of the mind-numbing statistics in a country that has one of the highest rates of HIV, but also because of the response of the then government which promoted home remedies and so on that denied the treatment with anti-retro viral drugs. What a difference two years and a change of government has made. An unlikely hero, President Jacob Zuma, who in those last two years described the aids cleansing shower he took, announced some major changes that can have an unprecedented impact in the country he leads. Here are two of them: First, all HIV positive babies will be treated and people with a CD count of 350 will get treatment. Before you had to have a count of 200 or less, or, yo had to be really sick to qualify for treatment. And the President said he too would take another HIV test as an example to South Africans. And that was not all. I listened to a doctor urge people to consider abstinence at times. Even if you are an atheist that is good for you at times, he said. People who called in to the radio talked about being faithful and careful. One man warned against the three punch of alcohol, sex and AIDS. The Brother 4Life campaign leaders also were featured as their nationwide call for men to be responsible has rightly gotten a lot of attention. And last but not least, I listened as Avril Thomas described the many ways Living Hope staff involved themselves in the Day with drama and at a courthouse, among others. There were more requests than Living Hope could honor today. This was a good day's celebration and I sense, a change-making day that will bring life and hope to thousands of people who live with HIV and AIDS here.