Let's get my colleagues to Durban!
Donation protected
In July this year I will be heading to the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa. Tens of thousands of delegates from around the world will descend upon Durban to this biennial conference, the largest and most significant AIDS meeting in the world.
My colleagues at the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust or HACT (www.hillaids.org.za), located just outside of Durban, won’t be among them however. The conference fees are prohibitively expensive in South African Rand, and their applications for scholarships were declined.
These are amazing people on the front line doing incredible work in some of the most difficult circumstances on the planet and it’s a crying shame that they won’t be able to attend this important conference in their backyard.
I want to do something about it, and I hope some of you will join me in supporting some of the staff at Hillcrest to attend.
I have worked alongside the people at HACT for the past decade. HACT is a multifaceted HIV/AIDS project that provides unconditional love and hope to HIV/AIDS-impacted communities through interventions addressing prevention, care, community outreach and income generation.
They do HIV counselling and testing, run a 24-bed respite unit/hospice, provide HIV education in schools, run prevention programmes with youth, support groups for grandmothers caring for orphaned grandchildren, and run a successful craft shop that creates income opportunities for over 300 women.
The region has one of the highest incidences of HIV in the world. According to recent statistics revealed at the 2015 South African AIDS conference, 36% of women living in KwaZulu Natal aged 28-34 years are HIV positive; there are 500,000 new HIV infections annually in South Africa; and there are 2.5 million AIDS orphans in the country.
I’ve set a relatively modest goal, enough to send two of the Hillcrest staff to the conference. I hope that we SMASH it!
If we raise more than $2,100, we’ll be able to:
- Send more delegates to the conference
- Support families affected by HIV/AIDS (just $5 is enough to feed a family for two days)
- Fund Hillcrest’s Respite Unit, which provides palliative and respite care to people with advanced stages of AIDS (advanced AIDS almost never happens today in wealthy countries – it occurs due to poverty and lack of access to lifesaving treatment; $20 is enough to fully fund a bed in the Respite Unit for a day, $600 is enough for a month, and $7,200 is enough for a year)
HIV/AIDS is a global issue, and this is an opportunity for us to reach out to our brothers and sisters around the world, doing amazing work in seriously difficult conditions. Let’s do it…
My colleagues at the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust or HACT (www.hillaids.org.za), located just outside of Durban, won’t be among them however. The conference fees are prohibitively expensive in South African Rand, and their applications for scholarships were declined.
These are amazing people on the front line doing incredible work in some of the most difficult circumstances on the planet and it’s a crying shame that they won’t be able to attend this important conference in their backyard.
I want to do something about it, and I hope some of you will join me in supporting some of the staff at Hillcrest to attend.
I have worked alongside the people at HACT for the past decade. HACT is a multifaceted HIV/AIDS project that provides unconditional love and hope to HIV/AIDS-impacted communities through interventions addressing prevention, care, community outreach and income generation.
They do HIV counselling and testing, run a 24-bed respite unit/hospice, provide HIV education in schools, run prevention programmes with youth, support groups for grandmothers caring for orphaned grandchildren, and run a successful craft shop that creates income opportunities for over 300 women.
The region has one of the highest incidences of HIV in the world. According to recent statistics revealed at the 2015 South African AIDS conference, 36% of women living in KwaZulu Natal aged 28-34 years are HIV positive; there are 500,000 new HIV infections annually in South Africa; and there are 2.5 million AIDS orphans in the country.
I’ve set a relatively modest goal, enough to send two of the Hillcrest staff to the conference. I hope that we SMASH it!
If we raise more than $2,100, we’ll be able to:
- Send more delegates to the conference
- Support families affected by HIV/AIDS (just $5 is enough to feed a family for two days)
- Fund Hillcrest’s Respite Unit, which provides palliative and respite care to people with advanced stages of AIDS (advanced AIDS almost never happens today in wealthy countries – it occurs due to poverty and lack of access to lifesaving treatment; $20 is enough to fully fund a bed in the Respite Unit for a day, $600 is enough for a month, and $7,200 is enough for a year)
HIV/AIDS is a global issue, and this is an opportunity for us to reach out to our brothers and sisters around the world, doing amazing work in seriously difficult conditions. Let’s do it…
Organizer
Justin Koonin
Organizer
Camperdown NSW
