While on vacation in Hamburg, South Africa publisher John Brown had dinner with a retired couple who in the last year left their medical practice in London to move to Hamburg. Originally the retired couple, Mr. and Mrs. Hofmeyr, came to Hamburg to pursue art but found the rise of HIV/AIDS too overwhelming and stepped back into medicine. Through dispensing knowledge and medicine to help those HIV positive, she met a woman named Eunice Mangwane. This is where John Brown stepped in, he found the money (₤6000) to keep Eunice in Hamburg to help educate the villages about the disease.
Within weeks the team had found sources for antiretrovial drugs (ARV) from abroad. ARVs greatly impact the disease by improving life prognosis if put on the drugs before any complicating illnesses arrive. It also brings down the risk of an HIV positive woman transferring it to her baby during pregnancy from 23% to 1%. In the first months of operation the group had established a clinic where patients were treated and released. In a year they were training other adherence monitors who helped educate village women, identify those who were/are HIV positive, take them to a clinic, and back home. They also help keep tabs on them checking in on them daily to make sure they take the ARVs.
This all began about six years ago. Now they opened a Keiskamma art workshop which employs 80 women, where employment is rare, and they are taught to make crafts such as embroidery and felt making. These crafts are then sold in the market place. Through this workshop they also involve more than 100 village people in art projects which has helped the acceptance battle with AIDS and gives them the power to overcome it. One project was an altarpiece which was created to represent the celebration to the end of plague. This piece currently is touring American churches raising money for more Keiskamma projects.
I thought this was a good final article to conclude the blog entries with since our final unit is on HIV/AIDS in Africa. This is a very inspiring article because it just shows everyone that even though the extent of the disease seems so overwhelming it is possible to improve and impact the fight towards a better life. It is amazing how much the people of Africa are affected by a disease they understand/know so little about. Education is the key to turning it around and this article is a great example of that.
Source: Independent
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