Alright so. I'm finally set up to take donations either over the internet (with user fees) or at any TD branch (no user fees).
To do it on the internet I'm using PayPal and all you have to do is click on the button on the top right hand page of the blog and you're off to the races. If you haven't got an account its really easy to set one up. As far as fees go, 30 cents of every transaction goes to Pay Pal, as well as between 1.5-2.5% of the transaction. Its not bad, but if you want to make sure 100% of your donation reaches the kids, youre going to have to go for a quick walk.
To do it through TD, where there are no user fees you just have to go to ANY branch in the entire world (or well, Canada and Northern US where branches exist) and give them the Eat to Feed Libeirans Trust Account information.
Bank transit Number: 27522
Account Number: 03556298965
Institution Number: 004
I know the walk is a bit annoying but (to be quite frank), if you think about it in perspective to what these kids go through, it hardly seems like anything. I'm not sure if thats a rude thing to say to possible donors or something but, it is the truth so.. there you have it. I suppose the entire idea of this organization is built on us realizing how good we have it even on the worst of days so, there is one more thing to think about. I find the idea particularly haunting at Christmas time...
"had it been another day, i might have looked the other way, and i´d have never been aware..."
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
world AIDS day
I'm sure at this point everybody has heard about how devastating HIV/AIDS is not only in Africa, but around the entire world. New crises are springing up throughout SE Asia in a fairly direct relationship to prostitution levels. The former Health Minister of South Africa was convinced that the relationship between HIV (the virus) and AIDS (a series of rare symptoms that become common to people with immune systems reduced by the virus) was a result of the forces of poverty more than the virus itself.
Point of this is that the disease has a pretty clear relationship with poverty and lack of choice.. People die off so quickly because they can't access ARVs, and while we know relatively little about the long term effects, they do prevent Africa's the crippling of Africa's most viable workforce (the disease hits men between 18-45 most commonly). The most frustrating thing, for me, is that we have the technology and knowledge to fight the spread of this disease.. Its just that Western financial interests seem to be a bit to caught up in preserving the disease (and the market for drugs) that it creates. Twisted, but that seems to be the nature of development.
As it stands, GlaxoSmithKline (major ARV producer) is able to price the drugs as they wish, regardless of whether or not the reflect manufacturing prices. To be fair, they do provide a lot of free drugs to various countries around the world, but I maintain they can do more. How is that a CEO of a drug producing company can have benefits that exceed the health budget of a developing country? How is it that while we know the promotion of condoms along with abstinence works to curb the transmission, the Bush government continues to officially promote abstinence only programs that are not allowed to touch on issues of prostitution? (check out PEPFAR in depth for another reason to be thankful Bush is gone)
What is missed all too frequently in this pandemic is that is not the seropositive person's fault. The structural conditions that have exacerbated this crisis are rooted, in large part, in Western structures... Of course issues of multiple partners will always be a factor, but are they all that more monogamous than we are here? I study African sexuality (or the myth of) and how it relates to people's conception of the disease on the continent. There is an infinite amount research here, but the point is that its not a whole lot different than it is here, just less concealed. One person remarked while I was on the camp that marriage doesn't seem to mean anything to 'Africans' (she seemed to think she was some kind of expert on a continent's worth of marriages. who knew!). She heard of husbands who cheated on their wives and assumed that everybody was like that on the contienent. What she apparently failed to realize was the reasons they cheat (one of the most relevant to the camp being that their wives being in another country because women are granted refugee status far easier than men). She also didn't recognize that some Westerners have just as little respect for monogamy as we do.. we're just a whole lot more secretive about it. A little self reflection might have done her some good...
HIV/AIDS on the camp is not documented.. at all. It does however, exist quite prominently. There is an incredible stigma against seropositive people, particularly when their immune systems are weak and they're sick. One girl was floored to hear that something I did in the afternoon was go hang out with a man diagnosed with AIDS. The HIV/AIDS department at CBW (organization I worked with) attempts to combat the stigma through blatant education and the promotion of condoms, and they are.. small small.
Anyway. Its world AIDS day today and while you can, and probably should, go buy a Starbucks coffee to send 0.000001% of the proceeds to some vague AIDS foundation, i'd encourage you to do a bit of research into what exactly is going on. Below are a few places to get started...
- Basic HIV/AIDS information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS (on a side note to this, I do not remember being taught about HIV/AIDS in public school... Maybe I just didn't pay attention to health class but I learned more about the disease while in Uganda than anywhere else. I imagine I'm not the only one here, so if you do nothing else figure out what exactly is involved with this virus, which has become trendy in so many ways..)
- 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen (book that puts a very human face to the disease by taking personal testaments from 28 people to represent the 28 million infeceted
- MSF campaign: http://www.msf.ca/themes/world-aids-day-2007-angry-faces/
-Articles that were written across Africa today on World AIDS day: http://allafrica.com/aids/
- Facebook World's AIDS day group (change your display picture!!): http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=91713010306&ref=mf
Point of this is that the disease has a pretty clear relationship with poverty and lack of choice.. People die off so quickly because they can't access ARVs, and while we know relatively little about the long term effects, they do prevent Africa's the crippling of Africa's most viable workforce (the disease hits men between 18-45 most commonly). The most frustrating thing, for me, is that we have the technology and knowledge to fight the spread of this disease.. Its just that Western financial interests seem to be a bit to caught up in preserving the disease (and the market for drugs) that it creates. Twisted, but that seems to be the nature of development.
As it stands, GlaxoSmithKline (major ARV producer) is able to price the drugs as they wish, regardless of whether or not the reflect manufacturing prices. To be fair, they do provide a lot of free drugs to various countries around the world, but I maintain they can do more. How is that a CEO of a drug producing company can have benefits that exceed the health budget of a developing country? How is it that while we know the promotion of condoms along with abstinence works to curb the transmission, the Bush government continues to officially promote abstinence only programs that are not allowed to touch on issues of prostitution? (check out PEPFAR in depth for another reason to be thankful Bush is gone)
What is missed all too frequently in this pandemic is that is not the seropositive person's fault. The structural conditions that have exacerbated this crisis are rooted, in large part, in Western structures... Of course issues of multiple partners will always be a factor, but are they all that more monogamous than we are here? I study African sexuality (or the myth of) and how it relates to people's conception of the disease on the continent. There is an infinite amount research here, but the point is that its not a whole lot different than it is here, just less concealed. One person remarked while I was on the camp that marriage doesn't seem to mean anything to 'Africans' (she seemed to think she was some kind of expert on a continent's worth of marriages. who knew!). She heard of husbands who cheated on their wives and assumed that everybody was like that on the contienent. What she apparently failed to realize was the reasons they cheat (one of the most relevant to the camp being that their wives being in another country because women are granted refugee status far easier than men). She also didn't recognize that some Westerners have just as little respect for monogamy as we do.. we're just a whole lot more secretive about it. A little self reflection might have done her some good...
HIV/AIDS on the camp is not documented.. at all. It does however, exist quite prominently. There is an incredible stigma against seropositive people, particularly when their immune systems are weak and they're sick. One girl was floored to hear that something I did in the afternoon was go hang out with a man diagnosed with AIDS. The HIV/AIDS department at CBW (organization I worked with) attempts to combat the stigma through blatant education and the promotion of condoms, and they are.. small small.
Anyway. Its world AIDS day today and while you can, and probably should, go buy a Starbucks coffee to send 0.000001% of the proceeds to some vague AIDS foundation, i'd encourage you to do a bit of research into what exactly is going on. Below are a few places to get started...
- Basic HIV/AIDS information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS (on a side note to this, I do not remember being taught about HIV/AIDS in public school... Maybe I just didn't pay attention to health class but I learned more about the disease while in Uganda than anywhere else. I imagine I'm not the only one here, so if you do nothing else figure out what exactly is involved with this virus, which has become trendy in so many ways..)
- 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen (book that puts a very human face to the disease by taking personal testaments from 28 people to represent the 28 million infeceted
- MSF campaign: http://www.msf.ca/themes/world-aids-day-2007-angry-faces/
-Articles that were written across Africa today on World AIDS day: http://allafrica.com/aids/
- Facebook World's AIDS day group (change your display picture!!): http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=91713010306&ref=mf
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