The Faces of AIDS
Supported by the ELCA’s Global Mission, I work with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia AIDS Action program. With the help of USAID (United States Agency for International Development) funding, our program offers community education, outreach and training, and works to support individuals and families infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. One family we visited recently is headed by a widow who supports 22 people, including her 10 children and several grandchildren. Because she is too young to receive a government “old-age” pension from her own country, and none of her children or grandchildren receive social grants, the family must make its own way by working the fields. She works in her neighbor’s fields for money or food, while her children and grandchildren work their own omahangu (millet, Namibia’s staple grain crop) fields.

	Know your own HIV status. Globally, 90 percent of people who are HIV-positive do not know that they've been infected. Find out where to go in your area for HIV counseling and testing, by calling your local health department or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC) National AIDS Hotline, at 1-800-342-AIDS (2437). Learn how to protect yourself. HIV is transmitted in four body fluids: blood, breast milk, semen, and vaginal fluids. And there are four ways to contract HIV: Unprotected sex, sex (anal, vaginal, or oral) without a condom with an infected person; from a mother to her baby during pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding; by sharing needles, knives or other tools for injections, tattoos, piercing, or traditional scarring; or through blood-to-blood contact. You can also find more information from the CDC Web site or UNAIDS.

Making it to tomorrow
This family and others like them are all too common in Namibia and throughout southern Africa. Their situation illustrates the devastating impact of AIDS on communities. Parents and young adults, the most productive members of any society, are most likely to be infected by HIV. Nearly one in five Namibians, ages 15 to 49, is HIV-positive, according to UNAIDS. Many times these people are their family’s sole breadwinner, supporting 10 to 15 family members on one salary.

When the HIV-positive breadwinner becomes too ill to work, the person returns home to the village to be cared for by his or her mother or other relatives. The loss of income forces the family to make difficult choices, often selling off its meager assets or taking younger children out of school. Eventually, the sick person dies, but not before the family’s assets are exhausted.

AIDS breaks down the social structures that have been used to pass on skills and a sense of identity from parents to children, further weakening the society’s ability to withstand such an onslaught. How does one person offer her children and grandchildren hope to dream about the future when she spends all of her energy securing enough food to make it to the next day?
 

Next page     Share this article