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September 24, 2006
Where have all the parents gone?
I turned on CNN this evening to a program on the AIDS crisis in Africa. In it, Christiane Amanpour documents the all too many stories of devastated and orphaned children, who've lost one or both parents to the epidimic. The statistics are grim (from Amanpour's written article on the same subject):
...[T]here are 12 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa alone, and in four short years that number will skyrocket to 18.4 million. That means AIDS orphans will make up 15 to 20 percent of the population in some African countries.
-- July 19, 2006, Christiane Amanpour, © CNN
Children are often billed as the hope for the future, but they haven't much hope if they're left to fend for themselves. Who will provide them food and shelter? Who will make sure the ones (many of whom are sick with AIDS themselves) get their medicine? And who will run the country? And plant the fields? And tend livestock?
But there are a few glimmers of hope, albiet 10 years too late. For example, two NGO charities, AID Village Clinics and Riders for Health, have teamed up to deliver medicine and medical treatment to to those who most need it in rural Kenya by motorbike. They've addressed a key problem in the fight to deliver modern medicine to Africa -- transport.
The clinic workers have been trained to ride and maintain the bikes that have been donated to the organization. Every morning they make hut calls to needy patients, bringing them medicine, instruction and care that they wouldn't likely be able to travel for.
I was inspired enough to write this piece, and to perhaps contribute to their cause. Here's hoping it inspires others to do the same...
Posted by Geoff at September 24, 2006 10:32 AM