Can you
imagine that the biggest part of our population here in Africa is unaware of the fact that a
mother can give birth to an HIV free baby even if she is HIV infected? For
instance am supposed to be one of the most informed people by the standards of
my society and I thought that the solution to saving children from being
infected by their mothers during pregnancy only came in two years ago! Look at
the shock on my face when I was given the true facts that this solution was
there since five years ago. How many children have we lost as a result of
ignorance? How many children are we still losing? As a community leader it
starts with you. I just heard about this inspiring group of women called
National Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS in Uganda (NACWOLA). I
really loved their slogan; “We are not
the problem but part the solution”. Sitting down with the Executive
Director of NACWOLA, Ms Florence Buluba, it hit me to learn what a wealth of
knowledge and hope she was to our society. They have designed different
solutions to help solve issues like stigma for the infected women and help
sensitize our society about how to prevent mother to child HIV transmission
(EMTCT). Funny though, she faces the same issue which all great programs with
great solutions face today, lack of funding! It really grates my nerves to know
that there are so many funds following in from donors and well wishers and all
this money ends up lining pockets of greedy politicians or selfish scammers.
Anyway, let us get off my personal issues about misplaced funds and I enlighten
you on some of my discoveries that I made while having this interesting
discussion with Madam Florence Buluba. What blew my mind was that when women
are tested before their husbands they are accused of being the ones who brought
the infection in the first place. What has that really got to do with the price
of coffee! It's like shooting the bearer of bad news. Who said that am the
guilty party simply because I was smart enough to consent to knowing our status
before my partner. Meanwhile sometimes the husbands are already polygamous! My
God ignorance of this magnitude is also the source of uncalled for domestic
violence. These women are beaten to a pulp and chased out of the marriage,
leaving children to their spouses some of them are subjected to rape and abuse
of different types. As if that is not shock enough they are stigmatized by
their community grabbed of their property, and left to wonder with self Stigma.
Now most of our efforts have been put to sensitizing the urban population which
is only 15% and little effort is put on the rural woman. I was really proud of
the work NACWOLA is doing by infiltrating the villages where they have centers
and through the network they have managed to reach a good number of HIV+ women.
Today the number of NACWOLA membership, is in thousands. Now when it comes to
the issue of innocent babies dying out of ignorance we all need to stand up and
do something. A Simple shortcut to help is fundraising for programs like NACWOLA
that are already doing something. The thing that has gripped us for generations
where we wait upon donors to help also really has to stop. If we all donated at
least 5,000 a month to these organizations we can make a difference. If money
is the problem then we can be volunteers to lend our skills to the success of
these programs. There is a lot we can do to save our children if we put our
mind to it. And in the case of the people with the funds to help sensitize the
masses about prevention of mother to child HIV/Aids transmission please for
once, do the right thing and give the funds to earnest programs nacwola@nacwola.or.ug . My true
intention as I write this piece is to inspire a soul or two to go out there and
do something so that we can have HIV free babies by 2016. NACWOLA believes we
can have HIV free babies come 2016 so join their campaign or start something of
your own but let us all get up and do something to save our children of tomorrow!
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