The
Oprah South African Leadership Project provides cross-cultural
immersion and international exposure through travel
and study in South Africa for Morehouse College students.
In the future, it will involve an exchange of students
between Morehouse and South Africa, and will encompass
ethical leadership training and community service
in both Atlanta and South Africa.
May 20, 2005
South Africa’s black population rides the top
of two lists.
On
one, they are the majority—80 percent—of
the country’s population of 40 million people.
On the other, they are the majority of HIV/AIDS patients
in the country.
To
say the virus is a problem in the country is an understatement.
HIV/AIDS is killing South Africa’s black people
at a higher rate than any other population. Indeed,
it is a pandemic in the country and in the southeastern
region of the continent.
The
statistics are staggering.
According
to the CIA Factbook, by the end of 2003, there were
5.3 million adults—nearly 21 percent of the
population—who had HIV/AIDS. Another statistic
estimates that six million South Africans are expected
to die from AIDS-related diseases during the next
decade
UNAIDS estimates that more than one million children
were orphaned due to their parents or guardians dying
of AIDS. And because of gender issues—such as
a higher rate of husbands cheating on their wives—the
infection rate of women is higher: for every 10 men,
20 women are infected.
But
HIV/AIDS in South Africa is not a game of carefully
measured numbers; it’s a tale of the haves and
have-nots in the post-apartheid era—a tale illustrated
as the Morehouse College and Butler University groups
visited two places in Pretoria: the U.S. Embassy and
the University of Pretoria’s Center for the
Study of AIDS. Though the organizations have different
methods of addressing the deadly virus, at the base
of each initiative is an effort to change the sexual
behavior of South Africans.
At
the U.S. Embassy, Steve Smith, director of the President’s
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) explained
the $1.9 billion U.S. initiative, which gives money
to non-governmental and private organizations that
provide HIV/AIDS education and treatment programs.
Smith calls the U.S.-funded program “the ABC
approach”: Abstinence; Be Faithful; Condoms.
There is a sense of urgency in his voice when he talks
about feedback from PEPFAR-funded entities.
“We
don’t have a lot of time here, so our program
is designed as a quick program and we need to see
immediate results,” says Smith.
Many
of the Morehouse students question the program’s
effectiveness given the constrained timeline.
“While
I understand he wants to see results in changing individual
behavior, I thought it was unrealistic to [expect
to] see changes in behavior so quickly,” says
Jamison Collier ’06, a business administration
major with a concentration in accounting from Decatur,
Ga. “I’m guessing that the purpose of
him wanting immediate results is to make sure the
money isn’t wasted. The government wants to
make sure the money is being used wisely and efficiently.”
At
the Center for the Study of AIDS at the University
of Pretoria—an institution that opened its doors
to blacks after apartheid ended—the Morehouse
group talked with five program managers about what
they do to combat HIV/AIDS in region and the country.
Their
challenge lies in recruiting student volunteers and
finding ways to reach youth who have turned a deaf
ear to HIV/AIDS messages.
“Students
feel that they’re in an educated environment
and there’s the thinking that educated people
don’t get AIDS,” says Johan Maritz, the
youth manager.
Adds
Palessa Mphuthing, the volunteer coordinator, “There’s
so much fatigue about HIV/AIDS. They think they’ve
heard it all.”
But
they haven’t.
There
are students who are sex workers. They’re not
drug addicts—they just want to get enough money
to buy a new pair of jeans. There’s the wife
who contracted HIV/AIDS from her husband, who won’t
acknowledge that he gave it to her, even though he’s
slept with other women during their marriage. South
Africans have a phrase for it: “When Marriage
Kills.”
“Some
people say the most dangerous thing you can do in
Africa is get married,” says Mphuthing, who
attributes some male behavior to the large transient
working population. Many black South African males
work long shifts in the gold, diamond or platinum
mines and are not able to see their families for months
at a time.
“In
the end it’s about giving people choices,”
notes Mphuthing. “It’s about empowering
young people to do things for themselves and not depending
on the government to take care of the AIDS problem.”
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