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| President's
Perspective October 22, 2003 
The children's faces stay with me See also: AFT helps African teachers fight AIDS There are children's faces from my recent union mission to Africa that will stay with me forever.
At a memorial event for the student whose death sparked the Soweto riots, a 5-year-old asked me if I would be her friend. Her 13-year-old sister told a devastating story of an economy that is providing no jobs. That evening, a group of young men, standing on a corner drinking beer, volunteered that although they had stayed in school, earned good grades and high school diplomas, now there were no jobs to be had. These young people are shadowed by a double spectre: the AIDS pandemic and poverty. I travelled to Africa as part of a small American Federation of Teachers delegation that included AFT Secretary Treasurer Ed McElroy and Joe Davis of AFT International Affairs. I returned convinced that the baby I held in my arms represents the future of Africa. It is why the AFT's campaign to educate teachers in Africa about HIV/AIDS prevention -while working to gently change tradition and behavior - is so important. Zimbabwe Minister of Education Thomson Tsodzo captured the essence of the AFT-Africa AIDS project when he said, "If you save a life, you save humanity, because that life creates lives for generations to come." Tsodzo noted poignantly that one of the sick babies in that South African hospital - or perhaps a child saved by AFT's education efforts - could be the one who finally brings peace to the Africa nations. In Zimbabwe, I learned that 40 percent of the nation's teachers are infected with the HIV virus. Classes already average 45 students. As the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues its destructive path, I wondered whether there is any chance that Zimbabwe's children will have the teachers they need to prepare them to become the intellectual or political leaders of this great nation in the future? In Kenya and South Africa, the situation is also grim. In Kenya, an average of 10 teachers die each week from AIDS, and more than 3 million people will die in the next decade. A significant percentage of Kenya's students between the ages of 14 and 17 are HIV-positive, with the infection rate far higher among girls than among boys. And yet hope can be found in our humanitarian efforts. The AFT-Africa AIDS Project, funded by grants from the U.S. government and Education International and by the sale of lapel pins to union members, works to train and certify African teacher union members as instructors in HIV/AIDS prevention. The AFT also provides funding for kits with visual aids and other materials that instructors use to teach their colleagues about HIV/AIDS prevention. The instructors use discussions and study circles to try to change cultural norms and behaviors that make halting the deadly pandemic more difficult. One part of the effort is known as "The Campaign to Break the Silence." In this educational campaign, male and female teachers break tradition to gather and openly debate and discuss how to save their own lives. These study circles - which include the headmaster and assistant headmaster --- are necessary to share the practices needed to stem the spread of AIDS. Changing other traditions and cultural behaviors is even more complex. We learned that a woman who contracts the HIV virus - even if she only had relations with her husband - faces devastating consequences. In Africa, the husband can, and often does, have his wife removed from the household for contracting HIV, leaving her sick and alone. And even if a woman suspects that her husband is having a relationship outside their marriage, their culture dictates that she cannot refuse to share a bed with him, or ask him to take precautions against spreading the disease. These are thorny problems, but the situation is not hopeless. I saw firsthand how the AFT-Africa AIDS program uses discussion, respect and education to teach how to reduce HIV infection. I heard how behavioral changes and prevention programs are already reducing AIDS transmissions, and how some African unions are taking the initiative and training their own members as AIDS prevention counselors. More information on how you can participate is on the AFT Web site, www.aft.org. One positive step is to buy an AFT pin that helps fund important outreach and education efforts. Building on the international outreach efforts first launched by its legendary leader Al Shanker, the AFT is empowering teachers union members in Africa to do something powerful: They are working to save a generation and an entire continent.
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At
one point I held in my arms a baby, one of many in that hospital ward in South
Africa, born infected with the HIV virus. It was shocking to hear that this baby
would likely contract the AIDS virus and die within five or six years, another
victim of the AIDS pandemic sweeping through Africa.