members’ stories campaign_2006
“In 1986 a dear friend living in Los Angeles was diagnosed with HIV.
…As Los Angeles had a superior infrastructure to deal with HIV/AIDS, and as my friend was by then, a committed member of several AIDS organizations, she did not want to return to her home and native Montreal, nor did her family want to move to Los Angeles – so I did. I packed up my home in 1993 and moved to Los Angeles to take care of her.
I administered IV infusions of nuclear medicine three to four times a day. I sorted her myriad pills, read up on all the alternative medicines, volunteered at ‘Women’s Being Alive’ became good friends with her friends, most of whom were in the AIDS community.
When the time came for me to give the directive to pull life support, it had been 14 months, the most difficult months of my life. It took me a good long while to get back into life.
…It’s now been over a decade. I saw firsthand what happens to people, good people, who are stricken with AIDS and I see how hard people are working on their behalf. I have experience, knowledge and a personal interest in doing what I can to help make sure people don’t have to suffer like my friend did, or go through what I did in taking care of her.”
-Susan Daley, member of The ONE Campaign, Burlington, Ontario
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“At the age of eleven I got curious about God and the Scriptures. At the age of thirteen I discovered a band called U2. I was always disconcerted by the fact that, while the Scriptures show Jesus helping the poor and the sick, most churches didn’t seem to be interested. U2 did however and Bono especially seemed to have a better grasp of theology than most preachers I had ever run across. Bono had become someone I looked up to, so it seemed natural to support the cause that he had taken up in Africa. The fact that the poverty which surrounded me living in Los Angeles paled in comparison to the poverty in places like Africa was an eye opener.
Then I read of a story about a man named Lawrence Ndou in Malawi. He had AIDS and happened to be one of the fortunate ones who received the retroviral. The problem was that his wife had already died of AIDS and the woman he was currently in love with was infected. Unfortunately she didn’t have the retroviral. He was faced with the decision of watching the woman he loves die, giving her the drugs and orphaning his children, or splitting the drugs with her ensuring only that they both die slowly. This is not the type of decision I could even begin to comprehend. It was after hearing this that I realized the true devastation of poverty. The people dying are not just numbers. They are human beings with dreams and hopes and loves. Locked inside the mind of a child dying in Africa may be the cure for cancer or the next great novel or the next great symphony. Only the world will never know it because extreme poverty ensures that they will never even have a chance. These were the realizations that led me to The ONE Campaign and Make Trade Fair. These were the realizations that made want to do whatever I could do, however I could do it, to help end the devastation of extreme poverty.”
-Scott, member of The ONE Campaign, Placentia, CA
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“As a mother, I have always tried to teach by example. I have always been involved in my community and my church, especially enjoying teaching Sunday School. I read about a trip to Haiti and felt called to go. Teaching young children and again trying to teach by example, I felt Haiti was indeed my “neighbor” and it was simply what God tells us to do, love thy neighbor. I went with a group of 5 churches that first trip to a mountain village in Haiti to build a medical clinic. We not only built a medical clinic in several trips to Haiti, we built a bridge of love and friendship, a bridge of hope from a group of Americans to a tiny remote village in Haiti. The joy and fulfillment I found in Haiti is indescribable. The poverty level is painful and shocking, a country so very close to ours, our neighbor in desperate need of every kind of help. Thankfully, Haiti has begun to receive assistance and education for its huge AIDS crisis. I feel we have an obligation to share our wealth, our blessings, and quite frankly there is no greater joy than doing so.”
-Elisabeth, member of The ONE Campaign, Middlefield, CT
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“I grew up in England in a relatively poor but adequate home, and with the benefit of good health and a great education…Even as I took my Christian faith seriously, I failed to make the connections between God’s call to love and grace, and His call to justice and mercy, until the horrors of extreme poverty finally impinged on my consciousness. I wonder why it took so long? Perhaps being comfortable, and being satisfied with religious busy work, became all-consuming. We are all somewhat self-centered after all aren’t we? In any case, my route into beginning to understand the crisis of poverty started with learning about microfinance, and the possibilities for permanent poverty relief through micro enterprise. As a technology executive in a large financial services company, this appealed to me, and made me start to realize I could actually contribute to a solution…The exciting next question for me, as I approach retirement, is how can I apply all the gifts and experience God has given me so that I can give back some of the many years of inactivity of my earlier life?”
-Graham Seel, member of The ONE Campaign, Clayton, CA
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“Growing up in a wealthy suburb, helping others rarely crossed my mind. Everyone around me had everything they needed and poverty was a foreign concept to me. Last summer, my perspective shifted drastically. I was part of a team that spent the summer teaching orphans
in Uganda. Meeting all of these amazing children whose lives have been torn apart by AIDS and poverty opened my eyes to the way the rest of world lives. How can we, the wealthiest people in the world, turn our backs on these beautiful, wonderful children? Why are we entitled to such riches when they have nothing? I pray every night for those children I hope that other Americans will realize just how vital it is that we help them. They don’t dream of riches. They simply want to know that they will have food to eat and parents to care for them. Surely with our many blessings, we can help them see their dreams come true.”
-Melissa Gilbert, member of The ONE Campaign, Atlanta, Georgia
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“When I was 17, I wanted to do something to expand my worldview beyond the horizons of middle-American privilege. I was a deeply religious person and, in my youthful zeal, I decided to visit a 
missionary in Zimbabwe. Ten days after my high school graduation I flew to southern Africa and worked at a bush-hospital for 5 months. I fell in love with the Shona culture and was heart-broken by their plight. In Zimbabwe, over 50% of their population is HIV positive. Countless numbers of those affected are heterosexual, monogamous married mothers. I saw first hand how indiscriminate this epidemic really is. It is a tragedy for anyone to have AIDS (regardless of gender or orientation), but it is a nightmare for mothers who have children to take care of. I am now older and have matured a great deal since those days, but I still have deep love for the Shona people and have tried to financially support that hospital for 15 years now. But much more can be done. I believe that America has the power to make a real advance against the fight against global AIDS. So many of us care; the ONE campaign allows us to speak with a single voice. We must demand more from ourselves, but unity is the first step.”
-Anthony Le Donne, member of The ONE Campaign, Sebastopol, CA
Check back each day for the next two weeks for more ONE members’ stories. And if you haven’t already, send in your story.
We just emailed you asking for your story, wanting to learn more about how you first found your commitment to eliminate global AIDS and extreme poverty. The responses are coming in much faster than we can get through them. You’ve overwhelmed us.
Below is a submission from Julie in Los Angeles:
“I have a little boy who just turned 4. When he’s hungry, he comes to me and tells me what he wants to eat. If he wants macaroni and cheese, I make it. If he wants a peanut butter sandwich, I make it. If he wants a KitKat bar, I tell him no – he’s only allowed candy once a week. I have the option to choose his food and the privilege of always having food for him, and I think every mother should have that privilege. To have my baby tell me he was hungry and have nothing to give him would be unbearable. I would like to spare every mother that feeling, because hunger is a need that every mother should be able to fulfill, without exception, no matter where she lives in the world. That’s why I participate.”
Check back to here each day for the next two weeks for many more ONE members’ stories.
