AIDS

Phone: 260-32-50049 (Thea Savory or Marylee Banyard,

The Moorings farm, Zambia)

e-mail:

(no emails over 300 words please).

Or visit us at The Moorings Campsite or The Malambo Centre, our training facility, ten miles north of Monze, Zambia.

AIDS

Lessinah Lusaka

AIDS

Added to the endemic problem of drought, AIDS has now penetrated its fatal and disastrous talons, and as the care-giving, income-earning middle age group of active mothers and fathers become sick and die, orphans are brought up by grandparents or swell the families of aunts and uncles who are already struggling.

AIDS statistics vary, depending on the method used for gathering information. In the late 80's Zambia started her first large-scale public AIDS education project on posters and T-shirts. Everywhere you could read "Don't worry. Be happy. Don't catch AIDS" This was the beginning of a long and on-going struggle to find effective ways to educate a nation. By the early 90's it was believed that nearly a quarter of the population was infected, and a different message was being promoted via posters and calendars - a two-part message. Women were told to stick to one life-time partner, while men were told to stick to one partner at a time. Today you may see signs that read "Think about voluntary counselling & testing", or even "Total Abstinence".

All sectors of the community are affected by AIDS. For example, the death rate of teachers is up. There are no statistics to share, but loss of man-hours due to long illness is a great problem for the Ministry of Education. Thus the quality of education in the country deteriorates. (PEP, Southern Prov.)

For more information on AIDS see Stephen Lewis's web site, or United Nations statistics on AIDS

News Update

Life expectancy is now at approximately 37 years.

Since April 2006, Dr. Thea Savory has been co-ordinating the roll out of ARVs (AIDS drugs) to hospitals and health centers to help AIDS clinic teams improve efficiency and the quality of care. She co-ordinates the 32 AIDS organizations active in the villages and links them up with the health institutions that supply them with the drugs. This is all pioneering work, developing systems and working on the cutting edge. (Paraphrased from newsletter from Dr. Thea Savory, December 2006.)

Miriam Simuumba of the Malambo Women's Group is raising her grandchildren, orphaned by AIDs.

Updated 5/22/2005