Dana Perino on her time at a PEPFAR site in South Africa

Apr 14th, 2009 2:51 PM UTC
By Virginia Simmons

A guest submission from former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino about her recent time volunteering for Living Hope in South Africa. Below also see her a clip and some excerpts form her recent interview with CNN’s John King about her experiences.

This winter, after the inauguration, I spent time volunteering at a PEPFAR site in Fish Hoek, South Africa. The program is called Living Hope, and because of their big hearts and America’s generosity, many people living with HIV or affected by the disease are getting treatment, support, and training for jobs.

I got a chance to talk to Khumi Morare. She was near death before getting help from Living Hope and today she’s healthy, has custody of her two sets of twins and supports herself by making some really great bags that are fashionable and functional.

She inspired me to do more – as you’ll see from the clip below, listening to her story filled me with emotion. I hope she touches your heart, too.

-Dana Perino

Excerpt below, full video and transcript here.

John King: Now, the PEPFAR program, the president’s emergency program — the U.N. says it has stabilized people, but not so much in the new incidence of the disease.

What is the next key step, in your group, in terms of making these numbers go down?

Dana Perino: Well, one thing that happened, when President Bush took over in 2001, 50,000 people on the entire continent of Africa were getting anti-retroviral treatment. OK? He started the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. It’s called PEPFAR. Now that’s 2.2 million people around the world that are getting this treatment. Most of them are in Africa.

The key to any type of poverty eradication is education. And in this case, it’s not only education for those youngsters to be able to get jobs but prevention, and prevention is the next step.

And I think that — obviously, there’s a lot of need. If you imagined that 18 out of 100 people that meet almost had a death sentence; now they’re able to, maybe, live longer — not necessary in the rural areas. But it’s because of our generosity and working with NGOs and in some cases the United Nations, they were able to help save lives.

But then, how do you make lives better? And that’s the next step.

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