Etoile

[Sweet_Pea]

Hi Etoile,

I just read your posts, you are doing the things that I want to do but I'm afraid to instead i'm back in school so that one day I can help influence change from a distance in these societies because i'm afraid of the heartache of being there.

Please share your experiences with us. I follow the BBC's coverage and the reports that put out by all the aid orgs and stat reports, but it will be more hearing it from someone first hand.

Thank you.

B

[etoile]

hey sweet pea!

nothing wrong with helping from a distance...help is help in whatever form it takes. Actually i was petrified of going to kenya and seeing things that maybe i didnt want to see... and if i was to be honest with myself when i came back although i was overjoyed at the work being done and the courageous people i met..i was more depressed than anything else.
HIV/AIDS is truely truely horrendous...i cant insist this enough. It really makes my blood boil how many millions of people we lose everyday from the disease in africa and now in asia...and yet nowhere near enough is being done to mobilise people...Many people wont agree with me..but the way i feel is that if this was happening on such a huge scale in the west like it is in these developing countries the reaction would be very very different. It really is criminal.
But on a brighter note i met some kids who nursed their parents, brothers, and sisters through AIDS,then sat through their funerals and still manage to pull through and be beautiful people..that gives me some hope

what are you studying by the way sweet pea?
good luck with it
etoile xxx

[Sweet_Pea]

I can't see how you wouldn't be depressed but you're a better person for the experience no?

I agree, if it was happening in the west that more would be done. But then you also have to look at countries where people live in ignorance and the spread continues thru needle sharing and unprotected sex. The most horific was the man in china who was selling his blood to put food on the table for his family. The person that was drawing the blood apparently didn't sterilise the needles.

The key is education but in the poor countries its more that is needed. Education, food, healthcare costs money - these are people with very little which is why when the parents pass on the children go to work to take care of their siblings and put food on the table.

The west is developing drugs. drugs that already exist in the marketplace but can only be afforded by the people that can pay for it and have a full stomach since most of them require that the person who takes these cocktails should do so on a full stomach. If the people have no food, no money to buy food how can they take the treatment even if they could afford it?

Please don't get me wrong, I do agree with you that there is so much that needs to be done, but it has to start with feeding the people that have no food. Without nourishment children and adults alike cannot fight off things as simple as colds.

I was just looking at a paper I wrote a month ago and the statistics are ugly.

- one child dies every five seconds from hunger related causes
- Almost 200 million children under the age of five are underweight
- More than 800 million people around the world know what its like to go to bed
hungry
- Hunger and malnutrition claim more lives than AIDS, malaria & tuberculosis combined.

I'm sorry, there is so much

Anyway, did you go to Kenya through your school? and will you do it again?

International business and economics

[HOUDA-K]

Salam sisters,

I've said this before & I'll say it again. I don't care if our people do have a low occurrence of it {and may God preserve the health of the Ummah}. It's an issue we should be concerned about, and we ought to be reaching out to people with HIV / AIDS and those at risk.

There are an estimated 25 million people with HIV / AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa alone. What are we, the world's second largest faith community, doing to help and educate people living with HIV and AIDS -- no matter how they got infected?

Caring for AIDS patients, no matter their race, sexual preference, or addictions... lobbying for easier access to medications and freedom to produce and buy lower cost generics...educating people about living a better life with Islam ~ without drugs, fornication, and homosexuality, honoring ourselves and our sexuality by preserving it in the privacy of a faithful marriage.

~etoile~

That's the sort of progressivism we should aspire to. Masha Allah 3leek.

Take a read :

AIDS.. Hidden Crisis In Arab, Islamic Countries :
http://www.islamonline.net/English/N...rticle08.shtml

[Sweet_Pea]

Houda, I agree with you but the problem is that there is still so much stigma attached to this disease that people are afraid to get tested and then to seek treatment.

There are a bunch of reports that covers this in depth and the one that sums it up in most countries.

Hated to Death:
Homophobia, Violence, and Jamaica’s HIV/AIDS Epidemic: http://hrw.org/reports/2004/jamaica1104/

There is the matter of helping people that are infected but prevention is still key. People are still living in ignorance and women in fear