World AIDS Day 2009 – We Share This Path Together
Dr. Jane Philpott, Give a Day Founder writes…My love of African proverbs is no secret. It always makes me happy to stumble on a new proverb about health or education or justice. This week I learned a new proverb from Burkina Faso that speaks to the work of the Give a Day movement. It says: “If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk with others.”.
To reach a world without AIDS, we have to walk far. We must therefore walk the path together.
How I wish we could walk fast and see this pandemic ended immediately. Every extra day that it takes means a difference between life and death for thousands. The solutions are not simple. Clearly we need to “walk with others”. When we do work together, I’m convinced the problem of HIV is solvable.
Yesterday in this blog, Tim O’Shea wrote about the heartwrenching statistics on vertical virus transmission. He said that “The fact that transmission of the HIV virus from mother to child continues to occur at such rates at a time when we know how to reliably manage this risk should be source of shame for the entire international community.” I wholeheartedly agree. So what will it take?
It will take money… large amounts of money from the international community and smaller amounts of money raised by movements like Give a Day.
It will take political will… which is built by movements like Give a Day where ordinary people act in solidarity with people they will never meet to address an injustice that affects us all.
It will take solid infrastructure to be built and maintained in order to deliver and sustain the top-quality healthcare systems that everyone with HIV must be able to access.
It will take a concerted commitment to address all of the global issues that impact health including food security, gender equity, education and more.
We may be daunted by the magnitude of the task. But we have already come a long way. In the five years since the Give a Day movement started, the number of people in the world on antiretroviral treatment has increased by ten-fold! This has happened through extraordinary efforts of countless people around the world.
To reach a world without AIDS, we have to walk far. We share this path together.
Please engage in an act of solidarity today. Please give a day’s pay… because a day makes a world of difference.
Dr. Jane Philpott, Founder of Give a Day to World AIDS
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