Community: Real Life

Save the Aids orphans


Ivy Maina was born and educated in Kenya. She is currently on ActionAid's 'Get on Board' epic bus journey from Johannesburg to Scotland. Collecting messages from African people to take to the G8 summit in Edinburgh in July, Ivy reports back to TheSite on her experiences along the way.
Entry: 3
Date: 11/05/2005

As Ivy makes her way through Tanzania, she becomes increasingly determined to make the voice of those affected by HIV/Aids heard by the G8.

There are experiences in life that test your ability to understand your place in the world. Sometimes you question why things happen the way they do and wonder how can they possibly get better or worse.

Listening and writing about people's experiences of pain and loss and trying to objectively relate their situations to international issues such as aid, trade and debt is a continuous challenge.

Interviewing the young orphans of HIV/AIDs is particularly harrowing. Yesterday, I watched 13 year-old Wema sob as he tried to tell me how life was good when his father was alive.

Then I saw 11 year-old Ruwaiyda break down into tears as she tried to remember life before her parents died.

I also met Lillian in Arusha, Tanzania at the Civil Society Forum. She is a widow and HIV positive. She lost her husband to HIV a few years ago, but believes that he knew about his HIV status at the time of their marriage in 1994. My husband's family didn't let me to take him to hospital when he was sick because they thought witchcraft was the cause of his illness," she explains. After her husband's death, his family took all their property. Lillian was now abandoned with a child and no job. She had to move back in with her parents.

Soon afterward, she also started to fall ill. Lillian visited three different hospitals on three different occasions to get tested. Sadly, every result was positive.  I felt very bad when I found out that I was HIV positive. I even began to lose the will to live," she says. But luckily, a friend told her about a support group for people living HIV and she began to realize that having HIV did not mean she could not have a normal life.

"One of the key messages I've picked up on the way is that aid should have a human face."

But normal life can be difficult without having enough food, a fact compounded by the need to support her elderly parents. Lillian also has to support her younger brothers and sisters who are still living at home. Fortunately, her son Eric is HIV negative. I was advised to use antiretroviral (ARV) which are about 30,000 Tanzanian shillings (about £25) for one dose per month. I cannot afford to buy the drugs every month," explained Lillian.

Life for Lillian remains a continuous struggle. I want the G8 to know that I need the treatment to increase my strength and continue helping myself and my family," she explains.

She also talks of a need to fight ignorance, especially the sort of ignorance that led to the death of her husband and denied Lillian the right to her home. With the right level of awareness, Lillian's husband would have had a chance at life with early diagnosis, counselling and ARV treatment. Eric would not have been denied a father so early.

World leaders need to take action by cancelling international debts and providing more aid. This would allow the Tanzania government to put more money to education and healthcare. This vicious cycle of ignorance and disease must be broken for the people of Eric's generation to have a shot at life.     

After meeting Eric, Lillian and hundreds of children like Wema and Ruwaiyda, I'm more resolved than ever to carry their messages through to Gleneagles and the G8.

One of the key messages I've picked up on the way is that 'aid should have a human face.'

I want to make sure world leaders' realise that when they sign-off aid funding they keep in mind that they are signing-off a chance of life for Eric, Wema, Ruwaidya, Lillian, ......and millions of others.


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