Publication Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2005
From Palo Alto to Africa
From Palo Alto to Africa
(January 26, 2005) Neighborhood activists raise funds for area devastated by AIDS
by Sue Dremann
Four neighbors on a street in the Duveneck neighborhood are hoping to prove that individuals can make a difference -- even a continent away.
Maureen Simons, Gretchen Emmons, Charlotte Goldsberry and Karen White have embarked on an effort to raise $10,000 to furnish an orphans' home in the tiny African country of Malawi, where AIDS has ravaged the population.
On Feb. 8, the group will raffle off a performance by the Stanford band.
"All of us have been talking about how we wanted to do more than write checks (to charity organizations). We wanted to feel we'd seen a project through end to end, and to have a close relationship with a smaller organization. As a single mom and the head of a household with a 24/7 job, it's hard to find things with added value. This is so perfect," said Goldsberry, a software-firm executive.
Emmons, a longtime volunteer at the Urban Ministry food closet, and White, president of the Duveneck/St. Francis Neighborhood Association, are using their contacts to sell tickets.
Project coordinator Simons first became involved in the cause when attending an AIDS conference at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Midtown. She was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problems speakers described, she said. In Malawi alone, the death toll from AIDS equals nearly one-tenth of the population, according to William Rankin, president and CEO of Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA).
But on the second conference day, Simons heard a lecture by Rankin that turned her concept of neighborhood activism upside down. A single dose of nevirapine, an antiretroviral drug, taken by an HIV-positive pregnant woman during labor, and to her baby within 72 hours of birth, can reduce the infant's chance of getting HIV from the mother by 50 percent.
The cost: 85 cents to a dollar.
"I thought: 'You mean to tell me you can save a life for a dollar?'" Simons said. Suddenly, Simons began raising money for a country that she previously couldn't even find on a map.
Together with parishioners at St. Mark's, she helped raise $5,000 to build a sleeping room for girls at the AIDS orphans home.
The satisfaction was immediate and palpable. "There's a room across the world that didn't exist before," she said.
GAIA, the nonprofit through which the neighbors are working, partners with religious groups in Malawi to teach women and children a wage-earning skill, how to raise crops, and AIDS prevention.
In a recent interview, Simons compared the conditions faced by children in Malawi to her own family. Her vivacious 11-year-old, Claire, gets three square meals a day, but at the Chisomo Children's Club in Blantyre, Malawi, 1,000 children only get one nutritionally balanced meal a week.
The stigma of AIDS also ostracizes the children, many of whom end up abused physically, sexually, or sold into child labor. "Girls younger than my daughter end up in prostitution," Simons said.
Claire has also been moved by the plight of women and children in Malawi. She's going door to door with friends to sell raffle tickets. She also told her mom she thought the family should adopt an AIDS baby.
Simons is glad for Claire's participation. "I want my daughter to understand how fortunate she is, to realize there's a world out there so different from our own, and we have to be part of it," Simons said.
Staff Writer Sue Dremann can be reached at sdremann@paweekly.com.
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