sub-Saharan Africa – This Magazine

World Aids Day by the numbers

Graham F. Scott — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:34:04 +0000

Year by which G8 countries pledged “universal access” for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and care: 2010
Estimated number of people, globally, currently receiving that care: 4,000,000
Estimated number of people, globally, still waiting on that pledge: 5,000,000 *
Percentage of Canada’s population that is Aboriginal: 4%
Percentage of new Canadian HIV/AIDS patients who are Aboriginal: 10% *
Estimated number of Canadians living with HIV/AIDS as of the end of 2008: 65,000
Percentage increase in number of Canadians living with HIV/AIDS between 2005 and 2008: 14%
Factor by which an Aboriginal Canadian was more at risk to contract HIV/AIDS in 2008, compared to the general population: 3.6x
Estimated percentage of Canadian HIV-positive gay men who remain unaware of their infection: 19%
Estimated percentage of Canadian HIV-positive heterosexuals who remain unaware of their infection (see comment below): 35% *
Percentage of Catholics surveyed in Ireland, the U.S., and Mexico, respectively, who agreed that “the church’s position on condoms is wrong and should be changed”: 79%, 63%, 60% *
Estimated amount spent on marketing costs to promote the (Product) RED campaign in its first year: US$100 million
Amount that Ad Age reported was raised by the campaign for that year: US$18 million *
Total amount (Product) RED reports it has raised to date, according to a July 2009 blog post: $130 million *
Year in which HIV/AIDS infections peaked worldwide: 1996
Global percentage decline in new HIV/AIDS infections in the last eight years: 17% *
Estimated funds required to respond to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic in 2010: US$25.1 billion *
Amount by which 2010 funding is currently estimated to fall short of that amount: US$11.3 billion *

DIY dams light up rural Kenya with community-owned electricity

Graham F. Scott — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:47:58 +0000

The volunteer-built dam in Kianyaga, Kenya. Electricity-generating turbines will be installed soon. Photo by Siena Anstis.

The idea of supplying hydro power to poor communities came to Nyaga Ndiga after hours spent by the river grinding millet. He was inspired to try the same concept—friction—to produce energy. In a country where only 4 per cent of the population can afford electricity, Ndiga was uncovering an untapped market: cheap, sustainable, community-owned rural electricity.

At first, Ndiga went door-to-door, generating support and interest in his idea. While there were no other power sources in the village, he still had to gain the respect of the community—a hierarchy hard to tackle—or his project was a sure failure. During this time, he met Robert Mutsaers, a Dutch industrial designer/philosopher/sociologist/social engineer who found Ndiga by joining a meeting he was holding on the side of the road. Mutsaers had spent many years exploring the region, having first driven down from the Netherlands in 1991, and was interested in seeing how such a project could bring communities together and provide the necessary social network for business to flourish. Their relationship grew over the following two years as they worked together to develop a coherent business plan for GPower Ltd.

Ndiga is very clear that GPower “is not about power, but about change.” For one, the project engenders the concepts of volunteerism and ownership. Beneficiaries donate two days a week to heavy digging and lifting to build the dams themselves. They also help fund the project through weekly 90 cent contributions. The elders who cannot lift heavy objects have teamed up with another local organization to grow a tree nursery to replace all felled flora on the dam’s edge and grow wood for electricity poles.

As the debate around aid and development rages in the popular press—see Dambisa Moyo, Paul Collier, Bill Easterly—here in Kianyaga, a much more sophisticated and home-grown concept of development is emerging. “Electricity is about networking people,” explains Ndiga. Instead of seeing development as poor people benefiting from the help of the rich, the poor and local wealthy farmers have come together to push their own agenda. In development speak, we call this village or community based development. Instead of parachuting in CIDA or UN development ‘specialists,’ communities pool their own resources and make informed decisions about how they wish to live their lives.

This type of development provides an educational platform for men, women and youth alike. For example, GPower ensures weekly meetings that discuss the mundane, but important, details of organizational structure, management, and investment. The goal of this project is sustainability: sustainability in the sense that this project, a culturally viable concept, will fuel initiative among coming generations that will empower (and power) not only Kianyaga, but also the rest of the country.

When Ndiga highlights that power is not the main cause for this project, he digs deep into the social structures of the region. Male headed-households have marginalized women, who, while in charge of the fields, rarely see any income; youth, complacent, are educated in missionary-run schools that continue to charge high prices for sub-standard education. He expresses the need to use the GPower model of community development to start and fund their own local schools and to ensure the inclusion of men, women and youth in all local projects.

In a sense, GPower is fueling a small revolution. Harnessing their own power source, these communities have said no to expensive imports and to the regional power corporation, Kenya Power. They are building the structures to organize as a community and push a communal agenda. An internal funding system ensures the project will remain alive long after international donors have pulled out: 8 per cent of the project is currently being paid for by wealthy local tea and coffee farmers who have bought shares in GPower Ltd. As the turbines start function, individuals will pay an average of $8 a month to access the power source. A one-bulb program mean that poorer households can pay $2 to have access to one light. Combined with future share sales, the dam will have access to a steady source of funding for maintenance and expansion.

When seen in this light, the uncomfortable feeling that development is simply a form of neo-colonialism vanishes. Instead, one see that these projects are very similar to community initiatives in the “developed world:” there is a need, which the government or another body isn’t meeting, and people come together to satisfy this need. It’s an entirely natural process – regularly hampered by foreign aid and development with little local knowledge – that build the necessary “social networks” for business and peace to thrive.

A kid's-eye view of HIV/AIDS in Africa

Graham F. Scott — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:16:38 +0000

Toronto-based NGO Africa’s Children—Africa’s Future, which runs programs and advocates for HIV/AIDS orphans and other children in sub-Saharan Africa, has an interesting photography exhibit on right now as part of the annual Contact festival. AC-AF provided cameras to African kids, aged 12-18, and asked them to document the world around them, particularly the consequences of HIV/AIDS. Loosely grouped under the theme of “What does HIV and AIDS mean to you?” the photos show a tiny slice of life from kids who are living inside the continuing catastrophe of HIV in Africa.

To my eye it’s a bittersweet collection of images: AC-AF, which provided these photos for us to post here, says these photos document the “courage and hope” of the next generation, and you can certainly see some optimism in these images. But the photo that won the contest portion of the program, by a 14-year-old named Warren in Ubungo, Tanzania, strikes me as awfully melancholy — a single student in an otherwise deserted classroom:

Click to see larger version.

There’s an ambivalence to this image—all those empty chairs—that just strikes me as sad. But the point of this isn’t to psychoanalyze every image to death, it’s to get a perspective we don’t often see: life as it’s lived by young people coping with the effects of an epidemic. Click through the jump to see some other images from the series, along with the statements from the kids that accompany their photos.

Click the thumbnails for full-size versions of the photos. Warren’s photo didn’t include a statement, but the other three do. In order, the photos were taken by Zainabu, Yasinta, Thobias, and Warren (last names were scrubbed because all the photographers are under 18)

From the statements that AC-AF took from the kids:

PHOTO 1
Name: Zainabu
Age: 13
What do your pictures show about HIV/AIDS in the future? If AIDS will increase, children will lose their parents and guardians and that will be the beginning of street children and orphans as well. The youth will leave and the country will be empty with only old men who are not capable of working. Animals will miss people to serve them food and water. Plants will wither away because they will lack water, manure and to be well taken care of. Manpower of the nation will disappear. SO IT’S THE DUTY OF EVERY CITIZEN TO PROTECT THE NATION AGAINST AIDS.

PHOTO 2
Name: Yasinta
Age: 16
What do your pictures show about HIV/AIDS in the future? Not discriminating the infected, they show that in the future there will be unity. People will not discriminate the people infected from HIV and AIDS. They will love them. They will know they can not transmit a disease by shaking hands, not even by hugging. And when parents give birth they will be educated for those who breastfeed their children to up to three months and when they are given medications for preventing the child from getting transmitted, the parent must tell the truth about her health so that when she is giving birth she should not share the tools when cutting the naval and they should all go for testing and the man should not refuse.

PHOTO 3
Name: Thobias
Age: 12
What do your pictures show about HIV/AIDS in the future? The picture shows that HIV and AIDS will increase in a high speed like water from the tap.