wfn.org | African elder statesman meets with bishops on AIDS

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Oct. 11, 2000  News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.  10-31-71B{465}

By Dean Snyder*
COLUMBIA, Md. (UMNS) -- Two United Methodist bishops are consulting with one
of Africa's leading elder statesmen about how to fight the AIDS epidemic in
Africa. 
Bishops Felton Edwin May of Washington and Alfred Johnson of New Jersey met
with former Zambian President Kenneth D. Kaunda Oct. 4 in Columbia to
discuss the possibility of United Methodists networking with Kaunda's
Children of Africa Foundation to promote AIDS awareness and to organize care
for children orphaned by the epidemic. 
Known in Zambia as "Father of the Nation," Kaunda, 74, the country's first
president, told the bishops that AIDS spreads throughout much of Africa
because of a widespread fear of even talking about the disease. 
"It (AIDS) is something no one wants to be associated with," he said. "We've
got to break that fear."
The Children of Africa Foundation sponsors educational radio broadcasts
about AIDS by Kaunda's son, Waza Kaunda, a physician who operates the Garden
of Hope medical clinic in Lusaka, Zambia. Its other goals include providing
orphaned children with basic necessities such as food, clothing and medical
care; building family support systems for children orphaned by AIDS; and
breaking the cycle of poverty that fosters the spread of AIDS through
education, skill training and job creation.
Kaunda himself is the foundation's greatest asset, according to Robert A.
Penny, the foundation's president. "We need to get into the rural areas,
into the villages, to the headsmen, and there is no person who will be
better received than (President) Kaunda," Penny said.
Kaunda was elected Zambia's prime minister in the country's first universal
suffrage election in 1963. He became president when Zambia was declared an
independent republic in 1964 and remained in office for 27 years.
During his presidency, Kaunda welcomed many refugees from apartheid in South
Africa to Zambia. One who spent time in Zambia under Kaunda's protection was
current South African President Thabo Mbeki.  Penny believes Kaunda's
relationships with many of Africa's current leaders will help him convince
African governments of the need for more aggressive AIDS education
initiatives. 
Kaunda's oldest son died of AIDS in 1986. "I was the first one in the
country to come out and tell the world my son died of AIDS," Kaunda told May
and Johnson. An unwillingness to discuss AIDS and its causes, especially in
rural communities, is still a "very serious problem," he added.
"If I go into a village to talk about AIDS, people will run away from me,"
said Waza Kaunda, who accompanied his father during the consultation in
Maryland. In addition to continuing his radio broadcasts, the physician
hopes to train counselors to educate Africans about AIDS. He also hopes his
father's foundation will support a research institute "to answer the reason
for denial" of the problem of AIDS among Africans, he said.
"In the villages, they don't know what's happening," the physician said.
"They know they are dying, but they don't know what to do."
"You don't have to convince me about the scurrilous and demonic plague that
is upon Africa," May told the Kaundas. "The issue is how we can network in
such a way that we can be helpful." 
May visited AIDS clinics and orphanages in Zambia, South Africa and other
sub-Saharan African countries as part of a White House Presidential Mission
on children orphaned by AIDS in 1999. This summer, he joined actor Danny
Glover and the Global Health Council in asking the U.S. Congress to allocate
emergency funding for AIDS education and care in Africa.
Johnson serves on the United Methodist Church's Hope for the Children of
Africa Committee, a program sponsored by the Council of Bishops to support
relief for children suffering as a result of violence and disease in Africa.
He said he hoped the church could work with Kaunda's foundation to fight
AIDS and help orphans. 
Since the AIDS virus was identified in the early 1980s, about 50 million
people worldwide have been infected and 16.3 million have died -- 13.7
million of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to United Nations data.
Each day, 11,000 Africans contract HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and now
more than 23 million people on the subcontinent are infected. By contrast,
fewer than a million people in the United States have HIV or AIDS.
As many as 25 million African children have been orphaned by AIDS, according
to the younger Kaunda. "My clinic is so busy I don't know what to do," he
said.
The Kaundas were visiting the United States to attend the U.S. Conference on
AIDS held in Atlanta Oct. 1-4.
#  #  #
*Snyder is director of communications for the Baltimore-Washington Annual
Conference of the United Methodist Church.

 

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United Methodist News Service
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