Today is World AIDS Day. The HIV/AIDS pandemic affects 40.3 million people worldwide, including 2.3 million children.Please take a moment to remember that TODAY 6,500 people living on the African continent will die from HIV/AIDS. Another 6,500 will die tomorrow. And another 6,500 the day after that. And the day after that. That's like three World Trade Centers collapsing every single day -- for years. The people dying in this tragedy live in Africa. They are not savages in the jungle. They are fathers and mothers and daughters and sons and brothers and sisters and parents and children. They are teachers and lawyers and nonprofit workers and preachers and businesspeople and soldiers and students. In short, they're just like us. Only they were born in a place that doesn't have the resources to fight this disease and that is slowly unraveling as a result of the loss of its most productive generations - the young professionals, the parents raising families, and the teenagers and children.
The fact that we stand by and let it happen is unconscionable.
Today I'm wearing a pin I picked up in South Africa a few years ago - it's a beautiful traditional Zulu beadwork piece that features the national flag. But it's also sobering, because this traditional craft has to address the new reality of a country in which approximately 5.3 million people live with HIV/AIDS. So with the flag, red beads are also arranged to look like the red ribbon that reminds us of the fight against this terrible, entirely preventable disease.
If you want to learn more about the HIV/AIDS pandemic, UNAIDS just released a new report and DATA's AIDS page has good information on activism.
(*The title of this post, "Kuyobanjani Na?" is the title of a beautiful love song by Vusi Mahlasela. It means "How would it be?" in IziZulu. Mahlasela is on Dave Matthews' label, or you can hear the song on the Amandla! soundtrack.)