Grandmothers Unite In The Fight Against HIV/AIDS

On Sunday, about 200 Canadian and 100 African grandmothers came together for a solidarity march along downtown streets. The event is an initiative launched by the Stephen Lewis Foundation, a group that funds community level projects for people infected with AIDS.

“I am a community health nurse dealing with HIV care and treatment to both adults and pediatrics,” march participant Caroline Mwaka said. “It’s very important to mark the Grandmothers International Conference Day. Very important for the grandmothers because they’ve come together and exchanged ideas.”

Grandmothers in sub-Saharan Africa have a Herculean task – some 13 million youngsters have been orphaned in the region that’s been completely devastated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. That number is expected to rise to between 18 and 20 million by 2010.

Lewis, the Special U.N. Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said these grandmothers are unsung heroes who are the heart of the AIDS response in that region. Many of these strong women are working 16-hour days preparing meals, cleaning clothes and providing comfort to several children.

Lewis marched among the grandmums Sunday and so did singer-songwriter and AIDS activist Alicia Keys.

“We have a continent in real crisis,” Illana Landsberg-Lewis, executive director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, said. “And the grandmothers themselves are bereft and in an agony of loss, depressed and isolated. And the orphans, their grandchildren, are also desperately sad and bewildered and angry.
  
“And it is really the grandmothers who are keeping families, communities and, indeed, ultimately countries together as they nurture the young children into the future.”

The march was just one of the many events part of the six-day International AIDS Conference that kicked off Sunday.

To learn more about the Stephen Lewis Foundation, click here.

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