US Congress Hears Uganda AIDS Tale

THE US congressional international relations committee has heard an heart-breaking testimony about the ordeal of Uganda’s two million HIV/Aids orphans, many of whom are “left to neglect and abandonment,” reports John Kakande.The House Committee on International Relations was holding a hearing on the “Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Africa: Identifying the Best Practice for Prevention, Treatment and Care” One of the people who testified before the committee was Nathaniel Dunigan, the founder and director of AIDchild, a hospice and palliative care centre for parentless children in Masaka, Uganda, on April 17, 2002. The AIDchild centre provides a special home, clinic and school for children diagnosed with AIDS, orphaned, and having no surviving, guardian. AIDchild’s board of directors and advisors membership include Ugandan and American professionals including US Congressman Jim Kolbe.“I suddenly realised that everyone here is familiar with death. They know that their families are dying. Their mothers. Their fathers. Their grandchildren. And in so many cases, they sense that they themselves are dying,” Dunigan narrated. “That day (in Masaka in October 1998), in the middle of that banana field, my life changed,” he said. “Nineteen months of on-the-job experience in Uganda, have shown me that when more than ten percent of a population is orphaned, there is a need which transcends culture, society, government, church, and home. When the world loses massive numbers of people, there are survivors left to neglect, abandonment and disease,” he said.Ends