Start Where You Are!
On this World AIDS Day (the 4th since the inception of "Got Cents?"), we celebrate the news from UNAIDS and WHO about the 17% reduction in the rate of infection over the past eight years. That's good news!
We are crushed, however, by the numbers that remain -- 19,000,000 Africans who have died needlessly from a preventable disease; 12,100,000 African children orphaned by the disease; 7,000 people newly infected today.
These numbers are numbing. Which is why we started Got Cents? in the first place. How can we possibly know what these numbers mean, if we can't visualize them.
And so, for the past four years, we've tried to give a physical demonstration of what AIDS is doing in Africa.
We displayed 1,000,000 pennies in the pouring rain in 2005.
We displayed 3,000,000 pennies and built HIV/AIDS Caregiver Kits to send to Africa.
We went to Africa.
We took our message to both the Republican and Democratic parties at their conventions, with a "little" help from ONE.org and WorldVision.
In the end, we tried to do our little part to make the world more aware.
We even made a movie.
And we are reminded of some of the first words we blogged, four years ago:
With only 10% of the world’s population, Africa has nearly 65% of the world’s cases of HIV/AIDS. According to the best estimate from UNAIDS, at the end of 2004, nearly 25.4 million Africans were infected with the disease, and each day, more than 6,300 Africans die while 8,500 more Africans become infected. As a result, the continent now has more than 12 million children who have lost at least one parent to AIDS, a number that is growing at an estimated rate of one new orphan every 14 seconds (or five new orphans as you’ve been reading) to 18 million by 2010.
So, like most Americans, I looked at a super-sized set of problems facing the African continent and thought only in terms of super-sized solutions; solutions that only superstars could provide, but not me; not my family. I’m not a callous guy, but even deeply compassionate people, in the face of enormous suffering, will undertake avoidance as a sane option, right? After all, what could I do?
My wife and I often encourage our daughters by telling them, “Just start where you are, use what you have, do what you can, and it will be enough.” Somehow, pennies seemed like the place to start. First, we had a lot of pennies. Second, it occurred to us that if we had so many pennies, others might as well. So, we set out in pursuit of the truly insane goal of collecting the millions of pennies it would take to display one penny for each person estimated to have died of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa as of the end of 2004 on World AIDS Day.
From the very beginning, the undertaking seemed impossible. Then others started doing what they could with what they had. A family held a penny bake sale. Several schools held penny wars. A pre-school collected 1,400 pennies -- one penny for each African child born that day with HIV/AIDS. A group of Stanford University students put penny jars across the quad during the last week of school and raised hundreds of dollars in pennies, coins and bills. A stranger designed a website and suddenly complete strangers were giving us their pennies. Our garage floor began cracking under the weight, literally.
Since then, my wife and I and our two teenage daughters have traveled to Ethiopia as a family five times, where we work at schools for orphans and destitute children. From the very first time, we saw a tiny piece of Africa’s immense suffering, and it broke our hearts. Avoidance would have been easier and less painful, but, oh, what we would have missed: like the smile appearing on the lifeless face of a woman dying of AIDS as someone rubbed her back or the joy in watching my teenage daughter picking up Wendmagegn -- a seven-year-old (now 13) orphaned by AIDS at age two -- and wrapping him around our hearts. What an incredible joy watching my family giving and growing and doing what they could.
Somehow, even in the face of enormity, it seemed like “enough.”
Pennies and backrubs can’t possibly change Africa. Not by themselves and not from one family. Yet, I’ve begun looking at Africa’s plight and asking a different set of questions, like “what if each of us gathered our pennies from our drawers and closets?” (that would be $2 billion) or “what if each of us took the time to learn the name of a child orphaned to AIDS?” and “what if each of us took the risk of letting our hearts be broken by the people of Africa?”
In a world where I don’t have to do it all, only what I can, maybe I don’t have to be a superstar to help Africa. Maybe it only takes each of us starting where we are, using what we have, doing what we can, and it will be “enough.”
We are crushed, however, by the numbers that remain -- 19,000,000 Africans who have died needlessly from a preventable disease; 12,100,000 African children orphaned by the disease; 7,000 people newly infected today.
These numbers are numbing. Which is why we started Got Cents? in the first place. How can we possibly know what these numbers mean, if we can't visualize them.
And so, for the past four years, we've tried to give a physical demonstration of what AIDS is doing in Africa.
We displayed 1,000,000 pennies in the pouring rain in 2005.
We displayed 3,000,000 pennies and built HIV/AIDS Caregiver Kits to send to Africa.
We went to Africa.
We took our message to both the Republican and Democratic parties at their conventions, with a "little" help from ONE.org and WorldVision.
In the end, we tried to do our little part to make the world more aware.
We even made a movie.
And we are reminded of some of the first words we blogged, four years ago:
With only 10% of the world’s population, Africa has nearly 65% of the world’s cases of HIV/AIDS. According to the best estimate from UNAIDS, at the end of 2004, nearly 25.4 million Africans were infected with the disease, and each day, more than 6,300 Africans die while 8,500 more Africans become infected. As a result, the continent now has more than 12 million children who have lost at least one parent to AIDS, a number that is growing at an estimated rate of one new orphan every 14 seconds (or five new orphans as you’ve been reading) to 18 million by 2010.
So, like most Americans, I looked at a super-sized set of problems facing the African continent and thought only in terms of super-sized solutions; solutions that only superstars could provide, but not me; not my family. I’m not a callous guy, but even deeply compassionate people, in the face of enormous suffering, will undertake avoidance as a sane option, right? After all, what could I do?
My wife and I often encourage our daughters by telling them, “Just start where you are, use what you have, do what you can, and it will be enough.” Somehow, pennies seemed like the place to start. First, we had a lot of pennies. Second, it occurred to us that if we had so many pennies, others might as well. So, we set out in pursuit of the truly insane goal of collecting the millions of pennies it would take to display one penny for each person estimated to have died of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa as of the end of 2004 on World AIDS Day.
From the very beginning, the undertaking seemed impossible. Then others started doing what they could with what they had. A family held a penny bake sale. Several schools held penny wars. A pre-school collected 1,400 pennies -- one penny for each African child born that day with HIV/AIDS. A group of Stanford University students put penny jars across the quad during the last week of school and raised hundreds of dollars in pennies, coins and bills. A stranger designed a website and suddenly complete strangers were giving us their pennies. Our garage floor began cracking under the weight, literally.
Since then, my wife and I and our two teenage daughters have traveled to Ethiopia as a family five times, where we work at schools for orphans and destitute children. From the very first time, we saw a tiny piece of Africa’s immense suffering, and it broke our hearts. Avoidance would have been easier and less painful, but, oh, what we would have missed: like the smile appearing on the lifeless face of a woman dying of AIDS as someone rubbed her back or the joy in watching my teenage daughter picking up Wendmagegn -- a seven-year-old (now 13) orphaned by AIDS at age two -- and wrapping him around our hearts. What an incredible joy watching my family giving and growing and doing what they could.
Somehow, even in the face of enormity, it seemed like “enough.”
Pennies and backrubs can’t possibly change Africa. Not by themselves and not from one family. Yet, I’ve begun looking at Africa’s plight and asking a different set of questions, like “what if each of us gathered our pennies from our drawers and closets?” (that would be $2 billion) or “what if each of us took the time to learn the name of a child orphaned to AIDS?” and “what if each of us took the risk of letting our hearts be broken by the people of Africa?”
In a world where I don’t have to do it all, only what I can, maybe I don’t have to be a superstar to help Africa. Maybe it only takes each of us starting where we are, using what we have, doing what we can, and it will be “enough.”
posted by Todd at
6:30 PM
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