Agnes On AIDS Funding
April 8th, 2008 at 2:09 pm | posted by Aaron.BanksInspiring nurse, activist and ONE member Agnes Nyamayarwo’s just sent an email to ONE members. Check it out below:
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Dear ONE Member,
My name is Agnes Nyamayarwo. I’m a nurse, a mother and an activist living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda.
It has been more than a decade since I lost my husband, Augustine, and youngest child, Christopher, to AIDS; another son, Charles, ran away from home to escape the stigma of this disease.
Now I honor their memory through my work with an organization called TASO (The AIDS Support Organization) here in Kampala, Uganda. At TASO, I work with HIV/AIDS patients, orphans and mothers to try and save others from experiencing the pain I have.
I am also a member of the TASO Board of Trustees, representing the views of people living with HIV/AIDS in all the 11 centers of TASO across the country. You can learn more about TASO here.
Your work at ONE to make global AIDS an American priority has touched my heart. Last week, you asked your members of Congress to support the reauthorization of PEPFAR and fund the fight against AIDS, TB, and malaria and you won.
Now PEPFAR goes to the U.S. Senate and I’m asking you to please sign ONE’s petition and urge your senators to co-sponsor this lifesaving bill.
Tell your senators that a vote for this bill is a vote to provide TASO and other groups like ours with anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs and to help us in the all the work we do at the clinic and in neighborhoods across Kampala.
Two pills that cost only a few dollars a day can save a life. I know, because I take ARVs and I remember how sick I was before and am amazed at how strong I am now.
I use my strength to raise awareness among women about the risks of mother-to-child transmission so they can be tested and protect their children. I also talk to young people in my community about HIV/AIDS to help end the stigma and to teach about testing and prevention.
American generosity supports what I and so many other people are doing here to try and end the suffering caused by AIDS. PEPFAR has already provided women with treatment during ten million pregnancies and helped 30 million people get access to voluntary counseling and testing.
You can ask your senators to co-sponsor PEPFAR reauthorization and bring hope to a new generation here in Uganda.
Being able to make a difference in this war against HIV/AIDS is the cause of my life and fills me with joy. I hope you can feel the same way about the work you do as ONE members. Together, our voices and our actions can win the struggle against global AIDS and save lives.
Thank you for joining me,
Agnes Nyamayarwo, ONE Member
April 8th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
This report shows that the PEPFAR money is not helping as well as it could, and that our government is not responding to questions, and even Freedom of Information requests are being held up for months. The spread of AIDS is on the rise, and prevention methods are being dictated by religious groups. Please consider the facts in this report about how this program is being administered:
http://www.publicintegrity.org/aids/report.aspx?aid=800
April 8th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Thank you for all you are doing and there will come atime when I will be more involved , as Daughtry I will do what ever it is possible to help share the ONE ……. Thank you
April 8th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Done and done, also FWD to friends :o), glad to see we are up to 8 (was 2 when I signed)
April 8th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Please sign the taso the aids support organization, and help the response to Agnes on Aids Funding. Thank you, Catherine C Rouyer In Seattle Washington
April 8th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
This issue of the direction and effectiveness of PEPFAR funding is very serious - particularly as it related to AIDS orphans and vulnerable children. Currently 15 million children are orphaned by AIDS. Fewer than 1 in 10 of these children is receiving and support. There is a new site for World AIDS Orphans Day (May 7) you should check out with resources and advocacy tools: www.worldaidsorphans.org
April 8th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Thank you all for taking this action to support the “fight for life” that Agnes is speaking about in her post. PEPFAR has been a lifeline for over a million people in Africa who benefit in some regard from its programs.
It must continue to receive FULL FUNDING in the federal budget so that more people can be helped by PEPFAR’s life-saving activities. For all its perceived short-comings, it still IS making a positive difference in Africa - and that is most important.
Thank you, Simon, for bringing up an issue which is the closest to my heart - the future of Africa’s nearly 12 million AIDS orphans. I also wish that more of PEPFAR’s resources would go to provide for these children.
The situation for Africa’s AIDS orphaned children should be a catalyst to spur us into even GREATER action for Africa’s Future - whether with or without PEPFAR. (smile)
LIVING POSITIVELY, debbie
www.mpwn-uganda.org
April 8th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I signed it and then posted it to my blog: http://www.blackperspective.net/index.php/effort-to-fight-aids-and-malaria/, along with a link to my previous story on TASO’s and Unganda’s fight against AIDS in the early days: http://www.blackperspective.net/index.php/aids-in-africa-uganda-still-an-example-to-the-world/
April 9th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Take a Stand!
Two or three times a month this email gets sent to millions of people all about helping people!
ONE.ORG needs to Visit North America and help out the USof A.
We have people with Hep
We have people with AIDS
We have people with all sorts of cancer!
I for one am TIRED of Funding all over the globe, than my own back yard!
If you live in Europe, I am sure you have these hardships, too. Australia, also has issues!!
As I read has a biased view of events and puts a spin on the details in order to get our sympathy!This is seriously F*ed up!This is put in such a way, Little bit of truth Dramatized , to make it SEEM Bigger than it is!
There are big stars Everywhere. BONO IS ONLY ONE OF THEM. I love Bono also! and Faith Hill! and Angelina Jolie and brad Pitt!
There is more to ths world than Afirca! Yes, Africa needs Lots of Help! However, It is time We Stand and Do for Our own countries!
April 9th, 2008 at 11:05 am
D.K.H., your rabid ranting doesn’t amount to a logical point.
I am taking a stand, a stand for humanity. Something you’re clearly not concerned with; but rather, you’re concerned with nationalism.
There is plenty of help for plenty of things in America; even animals have these types of medical donor funds now. Nobody’s advocating against funding illness in America or anywhere else, we’re talking about focusing in on eliminating it where it exist in it’s grandest scales.
Humanity demands it, and so does self preservation; as disease is not stagnate, and it neither simply remains in modern forms, but can mutate into worst things; nor does it simply remain local. They say AIDS started in the Congo Basin, this same general area of the world, and people were dying of it for 20 years before we paid any attention to it when it got to America.
Maybe if it wasn’t for people like you and we’d done something about it from the outset it would have never made it to America; and tens of millions of people throughout the world wouldn’t have died.
April 9th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Yobachi, your article about TASO, including the pivotal role that Dr. Noerine Kaleeba has had in the organization, is GREAT !
Thank you for making us aware of it here in the ONE Blog. I have added it as one of my favorites.
FYI, there is a website up and running to help support the Mulago Positive Women’s Network (MPWN) facilitated by ONE spokesperson, Agnes Nyamayarwo. As many know, the MPWN is a group of women who get their ARV’s and other support services through international support of TASO.
We invite you to check out the website and offer us any comments that you have regarding it at info@mpwn-uganda.org.
Thanks for your input into this thread. I will forward your piece on TASO Uganda to several people there.
All the Best, Yobachi.
LIVING POSITIVELY, debbie
www.mpwn-uganda.org
May 19th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.
May 20th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
We are a 501(c)(3) organization helping children affected by HIV/AIDS thru financial assistance, education, material distribution and outreach sessions. But we need funding and sponsors it is really hard to continue our work without funding, donations or without having media exposure.
Please donate to www.accainc.org and support this great organization.
We really need help and it is hard to keep on the good work.
The organization exist since 2000.
Visit us at www.accainc.org
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:34 am
O, it is excellent to have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.