Graca Cries For North
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Graca Machel and the UN special envoy on HIV/AIDS, Stephen Lewis, have criticised the international community for failure to help end abduction of children by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in northern Uganda.
By Anne Mugisa
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Graca Machel and the UN special envoy on HIV/AIDS, Stephen Lewis, have criticised the international community for failure to help end abduction of children by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in northern Uganda.
Graca, wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela, broke down as she addressed the press at Entebbe over the abductions.
“It is a sense of...I am so sorry. It’s very sad,†Graca said. Asked whether she would go to the north, she said, “I’d rather not go because I wouldn’t be in position to make the difference I would want to make.â€
Citing international meetings and commitments, Lewis described the child abductions by the LRA as “dispiriting to Machel, considering all the efforts she has put in.â€
Lewis said they intended to use the Ugandan experience and apply it in countries severely hit by the pandemic, especially southern Africa.
He said the flow of the money to fight HIV/AIDS from the UN will be gradual, but added that some countries like Rwanda had received half of their allotment.
He said most of the funds would be channelled to treatment, prevention and care.
He said he was not sure if Uganda had started getting its share, but promised to find out from the government.
He said the Clinton Foundation Fund would also allocate money for the HIV/AIDS fight soon.
Meanwhile, Machel and other UN officials also wept as clients at the AIDS Support Organisation (TASO) gave moving testimonies of their HIV/AIDS situation.
Graca and Lewis visited TASO and the centre for Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT).
They were accompanied to the Mulago TASO and the MTCT centres by the WHO Representative, Dr. Oladapo Walker and the UNAIDS country coordinator, Ruben F. del Prado. The clients, who included people who found out their sero-positive status as far back as 1987, told heart rending stories of how they acquired HIV in their youth, some of them as school children.
They told stories of loneliness as employers and family members segregated them after finding out that they had the AIDS virus.
They made passionate appeals to the youth to avoid HIV and for employers to stop discrimination as well as families to be supportive. They also appealed to the donors to make the Anti-Retroviral (ARV) drugs affordable so that those who need them could access them.
The TASO administrators said there was still need for behavioural change especially in some of the cultural practices, blamed for some infections. They cited widow inheritance.
Machel commended TASO clients and the members of the MTCT for boldly talking about their situations, saying that they had given HIV/AIDS a face.
She said outside these centres, many people are overwhelmed by the disease and they do not know what to do.
She said by people coming out to talk about it, the world can see that the disease is not just about statistics but about real people willing to fight it.
She said Africa needed to shout louder about the disease.
Ends
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Graca Machel and the UN special envoy on HIV/AIDS, Stephen Lewis, have criticised the international community for failure to help end abduction of children by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in northern Uganda.
Graca, wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela, broke down as she addressed the press at Entebbe over the abductions.
“It is a sense of...I am so sorry. It’s very sad,†Graca said. Asked whether she would go to the north, she said, “I’d rather not go because I wouldn’t be in position to make the difference I would want to make.â€
Citing international meetings and commitments, Lewis described the child abductions by the LRA as “dispiriting to Machel, considering all the efforts she has put in.â€
Lewis said they intended to use the Ugandan experience and apply it in countries severely hit by the pandemic, especially southern Africa.
He said the flow of the money to fight HIV/AIDS from the UN will be gradual, but added that some countries like Rwanda had received half of their allotment.
He said most of the funds would be channelled to treatment, prevention and care.
He said he was not sure if Uganda had started getting its share, but promised to find out from the government.
He said the Clinton Foundation Fund would also allocate money for the HIV/AIDS fight soon.
Meanwhile, Machel and other UN officials also wept as clients at the AIDS Support Organisation (TASO) gave moving testimonies of their HIV/AIDS situation.
Graca and Lewis visited TASO and the centre for Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT).
They were accompanied to the Mulago TASO and the MTCT centres by the WHO Representative, Dr. Oladapo Walker and the UNAIDS country coordinator, Ruben F. del Prado. The clients, who included people who found out their sero-positive status as far back as 1987, told heart rending stories of how they acquired HIV in their youth, some of them as school children.
They told stories of loneliness as employers and family members segregated them after finding out that they had the AIDS virus.
They made passionate appeals to the youth to avoid HIV and for employers to stop discrimination as well as families to be supportive. They also appealed to the donors to make the Anti-Retroviral (ARV) drugs affordable so that those who need them could access them.
The TASO administrators said there was still need for behavioural change especially in some of the cultural practices, blamed for some infections. They cited widow inheritance.
Machel commended TASO clients and the members of the MTCT for boldly talking about their situations, saying that they had given HIV/AIDS a face.
She said outside these centres, many people are overwhelmed by the disease and they do not know what to do.
She said by people coming out to talk about it, the world can see that the disease is not just about statistics but about real people willing to fight it.
She said Africa needed to shout louder about the disease.
Ends