At one of my English Clubs — a place for students to practice their English — last Tuesday, 140 7th and 8th graders crammed into a classroom that shouldn’t be able to hold more than a third of them. They were there to learn a few English words and watch the American put a condom on a wooden penis. I was there to teach them about HIV/AIDS. The class started by discussing what HIV/AIDS is and how it affects the human body. Then, I showed them some statistics about people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. I told them that sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of infections, and that 1.2 percent of the population of Burkina Faso is currently living with HIV/AIDS.

Next, we discussed the different ways you can contract the disease. I explained to them that it can be transmitted through blood, from mother to child, and through sexual relations. The human reproductive system and sexual education isn’t taught until the 9th grade here in Burkina. So, I asked them if they knew what sex was. After the initial laughter died down, I taught them what sexual relations are. You may be thinking that these children are too young to be learning about sex, but quite a few of them are probably over 15 years old and are already having sex, not knowing the risks involved. Many of the girls, unfortunately, may not even feel they have a choice in the matter.

My job is to explain to them the importance of protecting themselves and presenting all the options on how to do just that, including abstinence. When I brought out the wooden penis the class erupted into laughter — but by the end of the hour-and-a-half session, every student in that classroom knew why, when and how to use a condom.

SEE ALSO: Back to Africa: Finally a Peace Corps volunteer!

Peace Corps volunteers around the world have English Clubs. They are one of the many ways we are able to get across more important messages about health issues, human rights and more. Toward the end of this month, President Obama will be releasing his annual budget proposal. As ONE members, we need to remind him the importance of the United States’ international aid and development programs. My 7th and 8th grade English Club wanted him to know that they appreciate what the United States does to help them so they took this picture with me. Fifteen million kids are alive today because of US efforts.

Funded by the Global Fund through financial support from Product (RED), Tema Hospital cares for 2,200 people living with HIV. We recently visited their facility again –- their work never ceases to amaze me. The Global Fund make it possible for the hospital to provide ARV treatment and PMTCT (prevention of mother-to-child-transmission). Thanks to these interventions, only 4 percent of babies at Tema with HIV-positive mothers are born with the virus.

Project HEART was launched in 2004 in partnership with the CDC and PEPFAR to scale up access to HIV prevention, care and treatment services in Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. As of September 2011, Project HEART has enrolled more than 1 million people in HIV care programs (including 80,000 children), provided antiretroviral treatment for more than 560,000 patients, and tested and counseled more than 2.5 million pregnant women.

The success of Project HEART is especially remarkable given that the final stage of the project merely marks the beginning of a new one, in which local partners and organizations are responsible for HIV program management in their own countries. In just three years, EGPAF was able to build up the capacity of local governments and civil society organizations and transition the management of HIV prevention, care and treatment programs over to local partners. This was accomplished by following a three-pronged strategy:

As we turn our focus toward ending the AIDS epidemic, it becomes increasingly important to strengthen local health systems and capacitate them to handle the HIV/AIDS epidemic in a comprehensive and sustainable manner. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines six building blocks for health systems strengthening to help clarify the essential functions of a health system. Project HEART is a great example of putting these principles into practice and making a commitment to, and investing in, health systems strengthening. The result is something we can all celebrate: the successful transition of a large-scale HIV program to local partners and governments. Job well done!

When I was ten, I was busy doing important things like mastering long division, practicing softball and rocking the plastic glasses/bowl cut combo. While I’m proud of those accomplishments, I have to say I’m even more proud today to honor all the incredible things that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has achieved in its first ten years of existence. To understand the Global Fund’s impact, it’s important to remember just how bad things were before it existed: Fewer than 50,000 Africans had access to AIDS treatment. Malaria was killing nearly 1 million people annually. Treating TB was considered too expensive for most of the developing world.

In late January of 2002, leaders came together in Switzerland to launch the Global Fund. Built to be what Kofi Annan called a “war chest” to respond to these global health emergencies, it had the backing of donors, public health officials, developing country leaders and NGOs. Intentionally, it was designed to be different than other aid models; it was rooted in having local stakeholders (rather than donors) say what they wanted to do to fight AIDS, TB or malaria, and how much money it would take to get the job done.

Though no aid model is perfect, the Global Fund has clearly been doing something right, because it has delivered incredible results over the last decade:

In delivering these services — often in partnership with aid efforts including PEPFAR and with national health systems — the Global Fund has helped change the global health landscape. Though they each still claim far too many lives, all three diseases are all on the decline globally. Now, the mantra has shifted from a “stop the bleeding” approach to a more hopeful, long term approach characterized by phrases like “we can achieve the beginning of the end of AIDS” and “we know how to end malaria deaths by 2015.” And, just as my own personal style has thankfully evolved from those outdated plastic glasses to contact lenses, the Global Fund has gone through its own strategic reforms in the last 12 months to become an even more targeted, efficient mechanism in the years to come.

Funding — as always — remains a challenge. The Global Fund has said it is currently unable to fund new programs until 2014 due to a roughly $2 billion funding gap. Constricting global budgets, coupled with persistent whispers of corruption, are convenient excuses for donors to pull back on their contributions to these diseases. But the Global Fund has made the changes necessary to ensure that money invested in its programs will be monitored transparently, evaluated rigorously and directed toward specific outcomes. As a result, donors should feel confident that maintaining or increasing their contributions will go toward the achievement of bold new goals: saving 10 million lives and preventing 140 to 180 million new infections between 2012 and 2016.

Of all the aid projects I’ve been able to visit, the one individual who stands out most is a playful little girl named Madeline who I met at a Global Fund clinic in Ghana. She was born HIV-positive, but thanks to the Global Fund, her mother was able to access the antiretroviral treatment that will keep her alive and healthy. I get that 10 million lives saved through the Global Fund seems too overwhelming to conceptualize. So instead, I’d suggest we simply think of Madeline, and then think of all the other Madelines out there who, thanks to the Global Fund, will be able to grow up healthy and one day also master long division and practice softball like me. I just hope they all skip the bowl cuts!

Last summer, new scientific studies pointed to a tantalizing possibility: The Beginning of the End of AIDS. What could that have meant? A horrible disease that has taken millions of lives could be on the downhill thanks to advancements and lower costs for treatment and prevention. Suddenly, villages and communities where AIDS was once a death sentence could be kept healthy and avoid getting HIV in the first place through stopping mother-to-child transmission and more preventive methods. When ONE, (RED) and other partners combined forces to push US leaders to scale up treatment and prevention, we recognized this wasn’t a pipe dream, but a serious call to action.

And you came along with us! Our campaign started in October, as ONE and (RED) members tweeted at the White House, calling for a bold plan to fund the fight against AIDS and continue to lead in the fight. Later in November, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set a new direction for a global AIDS plan by emphasizing HIV-fighting drugs that can prevent new infections. Seeing this new direction with our friends at amfAR, HealthGap, ActV and others, we pulled out all stops for World AIDS Day.

ONE and (RED) launched two major events on December 1. One was a powerful live event broadcast from Washington DC (which you can watch in the player above), the other was a powerful new action that will continue to grow in 2012. The live event, The Beginning of the End of AIDS, featured a wealth of personalities: Bono, Alicia Keys, Elton John, former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Tanzania President Jakaya Mrisho, Rep. Barbara Lee, and Sen. Marco Rubio, among others. The highlight of the event was President Obama’s bold new commitments toward the AIDS fight, including antiretroviral treatments for 6 million people through PEPFAR by 2013 — two million more than their previous goal — and re-dedicated efforts to support the Global Fund. The broadcast, powered by YouTube, was seen by millions worldwide on our YouTube channel.

World AIDS Day also featured the launch of the (2015)QUILT — ONE and (RED)’s digital AIDS quilt. In the spirit of the original AIDS quilt from the The Names Project Foundation, our quilt will be used as an advocacy piece throughout 2012 to show the voices of thousands of activists calling for the end of AIDS. So far, almost 40,000 quilt panels have been created, showing the true creative spirit of a community ready to end this fatal disease.

Next year, we want to work with you to raise our voices at the G8 Summit in Chicago this May, at the International AIDS Conference this July in Washington DC, and at the Global Fund replenishment conference later in 2012. The quilt can be a symbol of how the community voices are weaved together in this fight. And we want you to join us. If you haven’t created a panel, get started now. If you have, keep sharing it with your friends and stay tuned for the fight in 2012.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and Dallas City Council Member Angela Hunt delivered proclamations commemorating World AIDS Day. Dozens of local sponsors and partners supported the event where we heard encouraging messages from several local leaders including Martellus Bennett, tight end for the Dallas Cowboys, who encouraged everyone to get tested for HIV. Dallas County has the highest rate of new HIV infections in the state, and one of the highest in the US.

At the ONE Dallas booth, we showed “The Lazarus Effect” documentary and passed out ONE’s white wristbands. We also had the honor to share our booth with our partner, World Vision. Rafael Munoz, a World Vision youth development specialist in North Texas, shared information about World Vision’s US programs and helped us hand out the vibrant World Vision “Lives Are on the Line” cards, which highlighted the personal stories of individuals affected by HIV and AIDS around the world.

According to Rafael, “Participating in the World AIDS Day Dallas 2011 reinforces the role of advocacy. In using advocacy, one common value is creating attention to a better life. We need caring individuals to speak about the issues affecting our communities and then move to act.”

World AIDS Day Dallas 2011 certainly made an impact on those attending. One resident from a local homeless shelter remarked, “I used to be embarrassed to tell people that I am HIV-positive because some people wouldn’t even talk to me anymore once they found out. But being here and seeing all of you gathered here, I know that I don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”

Throughout the event people had an opportunity to view panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt which honored the memory of loved ones who’ve been lost during the past 30 years. We took time to thank those who worked so hard for the many achievements made, and we accepted the challenge to persevere so that by 2015 we can truly have a generation that is free of HIV.

-Katrina Thompson, ONE Congressional District Leader, Texas-03

Rachel’s quilt patch

This year, I commemorated World AIDS Day at ONE and (RED)’s event in Washington, DC, where I listened to sitting and past presidents, members of Congress, corporate leaders, health workers from other countries, activists and even a few rockstars. At a time when every government cent is under scrutiny, I was reminded of just how far we have come in the fight against AIDS and many other diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world. I left the event feeling energized by the significant progress we have made and the leadership that has been shown by the US in addressing so many global health problems.

It wasn’t until I returned to my office and saw an email from a dear friend, who had chosen to stop taking the medication that is no longer protecting him against an ever-growing list of AIDS-related complications, that I was brought crashing back to reality. This juxtaposition between a community’s accomplishment and personal tragedy gave me pause. To be sure, we are winning the war against AIDS; but we also have a long way to go before we can declare victory.

The United States deserves a lion’s share of the credit for its leadership in the AIDS fight. My country, as Bono — Irish rock legend and cofounder of ONE — so articulately explained in a recent New York Times op-ed, has led. Really led. In just the last year alone, the US government, in partnership with nongovernmental organizations like PATH, has helped support:

In the midst of the current economic crisis, when morale is low, it is natural to focus on what our government is not doing. However, when it comes to issues of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other global health issues, our leaders have really demonstrated our nation’s potential to positively impact many of the world’s gravest health problems.

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which was started under President George W. Bush, has been pivotal in turning the tide against this disease. Furthermore, in an historic announcement last week, President Obama pledged to help 6 million people get treatment by 2013, 2 million more than the original goal. To have our 43rd and 44th presidents so invested in this vital issue makes me proud to be an American. It shows me that, when they want to, our two political parties can achieve some pretty remarkable feats in global health. It is our job as taxpayers to remind them of this, especially now as they consider cutting foreign assistance, a move that would only worsen morale at home, not to mention adversely impact the lives of millions around the world.

I refuse to believe that the era of bipartisanship is dead. In fact, bipartisanship was on full display at the ONE and (RED)’s event. Representative Barbara Lee, D-Calif., one of Congress’ most devoted champions on the HIV/AIDS issue, was joined on stage by freshman Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and — wait for it — they both agreed with each other! In one of my favorite quotes of the morning, Senator Rubio remarked that, as a country, we “are not just blessed so we can have; we’re blessed so we can give.” I couldn’t agree more.

It is through events like this and other World AIDS Day events that we are able to tangibly see the impact of foreign assistance and the leadership role the US has played in getting that assistance to those who need it. If the American public and policymakers better understood what the US has accomplished with their investments, I truly believe they would be reinvigorated and feel a sense of responsibility to care for the world’s poor. We are a nation of generous people, and this generosity, by and large, transcends our differences in culture, race, religion, and politics. To quote the timeless adage, which was echoed throughout the day, “To whom much is given, much is required.”

It is time, as our President so eloquently stated, to “put humanity before politics…and to fight for all the people who didn’t live to see [our success].” I promise to continue fighting for my friend and for all of the men, women, and children who were taken far too early from this world by this and other diseases. I hope you will join me.

Add your voice to the (2015)QUILT. By creating a personalized, digital panel and using it as your social media avatar you can show your support for a HIV-free generation and future US investments in global health.

I’m sitting in a mostly quiet airport eating an international dinner (read: China Panda), trying to remember names and faces and which comments went with the particular faces and names I could remember with a little help from the pocket full of new business cards I acquired. My first thought is, “The Ronald Reagan Airport has great lighting.” My second thought, which has equally little to do with my day is, “I wish the Dunkin Donuts was still open.” But my third thought, the one that has been rattling around in my head since 6:30 a.m., was, “How do you kill a dragon?”

You see, as I write this, I am winding down from a day spent wandering the halls of the Senate, as part of a World AIDS Day initiative. I started my morning with a walk to George Washington University interrupted by a detour into the strategically located Starbucks across from the Jack Morton building where we were going to gather.

The man who stepped in line behind me was obviously a regular, and well-known. I was able to surmise that he was the manager of the building where ONE and (RED)’s World AIDS Day event was being held. I ordered my drink, and stepped toward the bar.

“Do you think you might meet him?” Someone was speaking to the “regular” who managed the building.

In a space about to be inhabited by President Obama, President Kikwete of Tanzania, Muhtar Kent, CEO of Coca-Cola Company, President Clinton and President Bush, it was obvious who they were speaking of… Bono.

It is a strange social economy we find ourselves in these days. I smiled, grabbed my drink, and stepped back out into the cool morning air.

I arrived just as the Secret Service and police forces were making their final security sweep of the building. It is habitual for me to show up early for events such as this. Not just a little early, more like hours before. I do it when I speak, and apparently, I do it when I am just attending.

The event was titled, “The Beginning of the End of AIDS.” It was taken from an impassioned speech given by Senator Hillary Clinton a few weeks earlier, where she brought to light the new and hopeful scientific research surrounding HIV/AIDS treatment and awareness.

The big shocker was that it turns out that treatment IS prevention. The antiretroviral drug regimen actually reduces the virus to a form that is almost non-transmittable, reducing the likelihood of sexual transmission by 96 percent!

This is AMAZING news. It means that the very same drugs that keep people with AIDS alive, is also stopping the transmission of the disease. And what this means is that we may simply be generations away from the end of AIDS.

Last summer, I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s, “The Hobbit,” to my son. It began with a few chapters and then a short encouragement from me often ending in the phrase, “It gets really good later.” It was hard to keep his attention for a bit of the set up, the development of the story and characters. It was hard to remember who all the primary characters were, and not get them mixed up. I found myself backtracking quite a bit so that we could remember which elves were which, what weapons they carried, and why they were significant to the story. “Let’s keep reading… the part with the dragon is coming up,” I would say.

The descriptions of carnage finally came as we read pages describing entire mountains reduced to embers, and whole villages full of people simply gone and the invasion of fear and loss of joy and wealth. It reminded me of something else.

I am not a child of wizardry. I wasn’t raised on fantasy stories. I have never owned a set of recklessly multi-sided dice. But I have read a few novels that seem consistent in their portrayal of dragons. They are superior in intelligence and cunning, and often described as “flying death.” They are able to adapt to the skills and methods of their victims. They are relentless, and indiscriminate in their thirst for wealth and blood. They are difficult to kill. And once they have laid claim to a land and its people, the outlook is most definitely grim.

AIDS has been around for 30 years. In 30 years, it has been responsible for 30 million funerals. When the disease was first discovered, it didn’t even have a name. No one was quite sure what to do with a virus that attacked the immune system and was capable of morphing to adapt to treatments.

It was reported as GRID, and also as, “the gay cancer.” Finally it became, “AIDS”. Whatever it was called, it meant certain death. And that was just the beginning. It wasn’t just a disease that affected the body. It was a carrier of fear.

Human beings are strange and complex things. Without understanding, we tend to react out of fear. We have a bent to want to destroy what we do not understand, even if the act of destruction is more time consuming and costly than the time invested in studying or knowing. We don’t like what we can’t explain. If we don’t know what causes a disease, how can we trust the people around us to keep such a thing from spreading?

Fear became stigma and in its path are millions of lives that have been scorched and reduced to embers simply because they were thought to be HIV-positive. People were driven from their families, their workplaces and their homes and communities. They were not allowed to touch their children, or come to their churches. They were left for dead, far before the disease had even begun to stake claim.

Dragons like gold. This was something else I learned from, “The Hobbit.” They can smell gold, and they have a well-developed instinct to horde it. They have no use for it in the economic sense. They simply want to take it from the homes and coffers of their victims. They don’t want just a portion, but every last galleon or coin. Dragon’s sleep on the gold, they brush their hardened scales against it, and let it drip from between their callous talons. It represents a bleeding of sorts of the villages where a dragon’s focus rests. It is a tangible stripping away of power and place. Without a form of wealth, the basic things needed for survival become harder to come by. Villages collapse for lack of productivity that devolves into lack of shelter, food, education and hope. Darkness sets in, and with it, the poison that brings men and women to give up entirely.

Billions of dollars have been spent on HIV/AIDS. It is just the necessary path leading from nothing to understanding. It costs money to fail and then to fail again, until eventually the desired outcome presents itself. I have been in many conversations with skeptics who are quick to remind me that many people have made a lot of money in the, “AIDS business.” And that this is money we will never see again.

“How do we kill it? How do we get close enough to spy a weakness, or a soft spot where we can let our swords or arrows burrow deeply beneath its scales? Does it have a weakness?” These are the questions that the bravest of knights were plagued to answer.

I imagine that the act of killing a dragon could never truly be a solitary act. Perhaps if dragons were soft, meek things, the first person to come upon such a beast might also be the one responsible for immediately destroying it. But as we understand, dragons are not such things.

With breath strained from the act of running for dear life, and choked by overwhelming fear, we hear countless descriptions of the evil lurking before us. Each encounter takes on greater risk, and a clearer picture of what this “thing” is.

Until one day, a weakness is discovered. In “The Hobbit,” the weakness was a soft spot on the underbelly of Smog.

The US through the incredible formation of PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), and the building of the Global Fund, is responsible for providing antiretroviral drugs to more than 4 million people. Those treatments have allowed us to get very close to HIV/AIDS. We have found a weakness.

I can picture the mixed emotions of a village tormented by a dragon when they find out that such a creature has a weakness. It would be a collision of new hope with old defeatism. It would be a conscious effort to clear the mind and focus on the task at hand. People have been laid to waste. They are tired and weary. But at this moment when they are most vulnerable and their enemy is most vulnerable it becomes a choice of who has the soul strength to dig in and make a final stand.

The fight against AIDS is not sexy anymore. It isn’t the hip cause of the month, or media saturating conversation on our television sets. The people and organizations who’ve joined the fight seeking some kind of pittance of glory have fallen away leaving only those of us who share some inherent purpose woven deeply in our souls for wanting this disease to meet its end. We are weary. We have been ravaged by cynicism and disappointment. And we are hearing the words, “The Beginning of the End of AIDS.” We are letting the words roll over in our heads, “We found a weakness.”

We now know that the ARV treatments reduce the potential transmission of the virus by 96 percent. If you add the health benefits of male circumcision and the wonder drugs that prevent mother to child transmission of the disease, we have a found a path to end the evil oppression of this disease.

I have watched enough movies and read enough books to spot a scenario from miles away. It is the commonly used device of nearly killing an enemy. You know the scene. The beast is lying in defeat nearly breathing its last breath, and rather than complete the final act giving the beast over to death, our hero pauses.

We are pausing. We know the path. We have the resources. We have the means to end AIDS. And instead of burying our blade deep into its black heart, we pause.

It was reported that many of the countries that pledged financially to the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, have not made good on those pledges. It has also been reported that PEPFAR is on the verge of losing funding. The weariness of the fight has set in.

I will write one last thing about dragons. They heal quickly and return to the place of their wounding with great vengeance, fueled by a grudge that only makes them stronger. If someone sets out to kill a dragon, then they must kill a dragon.

We have set out to end AIDS. We must. The most valuable and effective swords that are available to us, are the voices we raise. My flight is about to take off. And the echoes of conversations from earlier today carry a common point. The government will tune its ears to the strongest voice. It will act upon the expressed concerns and cares of its people. We must let government know that we are here to kill a dragon.

We will not stand by as we lose our foothold, and watch HIV/AIDS rise up with greater force.

Gather your weapons: http://www.bloodwatermission.com/AIDS, http://2015quilt.com

On World AIDS Day, the executive board of ONE at George Washington University was provided with the extraordinary opportunity to attend ONE and (RED)’s Beginning of the End of AIDS event featuring President Obama, Alicia Keys, Bono and other bipartisan leaders, which occurred on our university campus. The event was incredibly inspiring and the knowledgeable panelists effectively demonstrated the gravity of the situation and expressed the need for all of us to work together to reach a future without AIDS.

World AIDS Day is about reflecting on the progress we’ve recently made in eradicating the spread of HIV and AIDS while acknowledging that even though complete elimination is medically feasible, the fight is far from over. Pledging to completely eliminate the disease in newborns by 2015 and increasing medical treatment in African countries are clear goals that can be attained with the help of the government, private business, nonprofits and ordinary citizens.

I feel the speakers effectively communicated the importance of leading in the fight against AIDS and I agree it is our moral obligation, as the wealthiest and most capable nation in the world must take an active role in allocating resources to save lives that would otherwise be taken by AIDS.

I cannot express enough how blessed I feel to have been able to witness history, to be able to say I was there when President Obama announced the newest goal to provide an additional 2 million people with antiretroviral treatment by 2013. I know that we can reach this goal worldwide and that every one of us can make a difference.

As president of the George Washington University ONE chapter, I too, vow to spread awareness and support this cause. I feel that students can make a vast difference and that gaining the support of students is the perfect way to guarantee an ongoing fight in the future.

-Jessica Sardella, ONE GWU President

Take a look at his full statement here:

“There is reason to celebrate today that over 4 million people with AIDS in Africa are on antiviral drugs as a result of the US commitments through PEPFAR and other partnerships. There is reason to set our resolve, as almost 5,000 people die every day due to AIDS and there are about 7,000 new HIV infections a day. Thankfully, there is reason to hope that in our lifetime, we may see the end of AIDS. Let’s turn our
resolve into action.”