This chance meeting will blow you away. It did me. On November 25, two days before Thanksgiving, I was in Rwanda preparing for our World AIDS Day Webcast less than six days away. We couldn’t find any way to get our videos and photo materials to the Fitchburg office in time for inclusion for the World AIDS Day Webcast on December 1st from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Webcast’s producers Erik Weikert and Peter Keto kept waiting for my assistant Jimmy Kircher to send the downloads via the internet but all attempts failed in a region of the world where technology is not up to speed.
Trying to send a package to the U.S. from landlocked Rwanda in a timely fashion and at a reasonable price proved impossible. Fed Ex, DHL and others couldn’t do it. I had planned on hosting our 3rd Annual Webcast from Kinshasa in the DRC because I felt it would give a developing nation the opportunity to be part of a major global experience. And it would let worried youth in hard-hit areas know that we were concerned about their lives too.
Frustrated and dejected, I used our Iridium satellite phone to call Erik and Peter in the U.S. and gave them the bad news. Yet we were upbeat that the global webcast would still begin at 9 AM on the 1st. After the call, I sat down at the Novotel Hotel restaurant for a soup and a sandwich before the kitchen closed. This was at 9:30 at night, a time when I am never sitting in a restaurant. As I was typing the next day’s blog, a voice exclaimed, “John! Is that you, John Chittick?”
I looked up expecting to see one of our Rwandan contacts. Imagine my surprise, utter shock, in fact, that it was an “old” American friend, Matt Hodges, from my Harvard days in the early 1980s. We hadn’t seen each other in decades and he joined me for a drink. He said he was at the restaurant to meet business friends. Matt knows about my work so he wasn’t completely surprised that I was in Africa but had no idea I was going to be in Rwanda at the same time as him.
It turns out he is involved in the coffee export business and Rwanda has some of the finest coffee anywhere. He travels there on a regular basis and is involved in a new business called Bourbon Coffee (watch out Starbucks) but with an unique twist: the bar code on each package can be used on an internet search to find the exact GPS location where the coffee is picked and shows a video of the villagers preparing it (www.geomotion.com).
The meeting was a chance happening but here was the incredibly, serendipitous moment: Matt was flying back to Boston the next day! Yippee!!! I broke out in the widest grin possible on my elastic face. I told him of my predicament with the video materials and he agreed to bring them with him on the plane. Jimmy got the package together and I called Erik who said he would pick up the package from Matt’s house near Boston on Thanksgiving day (in enough time to do the edits).
Our Global Webcast, sponsored in part by Cable Positive’s Tony Cox Fund, was a big success due in large part to this major bit of serendipidity.
Jimmy Kircher in Africa
See Jimmy’s own blog click here
This trip was the first time in my global travels that I have been accompanied by a U.S. volunteer. This occurred due to a wonderful Board members, Jim Dunning, who donated two round trip tickets to and through Africa. Because TeenAIDS has very little spare cash, it was necessary for me to put the word out that I was looking for a college age student who could assist me and help raise funds to pay for his share of the trip.
I mentioned the extra ticket to another of my Board members, Gig Faux and he suggested he knew a talented young student from his former fraternity Phi Delt at Dartmouth College (both Gig and I attended Dartmouth but a generation apart – as well as Deerfield Academy). In a matter of a day, Dartmouth Junior Jimmy Kircher emailed that he was game. So barely 4 weeks before we were set to leave, Jimmy and I were exchanging e-mails and daily phone calls to get everything in the works, including plane reservations, visas and all the medical vaccinations needed. Because Jimmy was going as my assistant, I assigned him the job of making contacts in Rwanda and organizing our week’s schedule there. I also put him in change of finding a suitable satellite telephone and organizing the cameras that we were bringing. Jimmy was also put in charge of handling all the receipts and preparing the financial records to be sent back to the office while we were traveling.
Jimmy was able to raise over $3,000 from Dartmouth Alumni (including some sizeable donations from Phi Delt alumni, student organizations and from family and friends). Considering the time element, this was a remarkable achievement.
He was able to go on the trip because he was officially on leave for fall 2008. He had previously taken a term abroad in Berlin, an experience that he loved.
In some ways, that first overseas trip to Germany prepared him for this adventure, although nothing quite prepares someone for a rough and tumble journey to the heart of Africa. Jimmy showed a lot of courage and fortitude during some difficult experiences we had. He made friends everywhere we went, especially the young females who loved his longish hair. A quiet, unassuming guy by nature, Jimmy was the “yang” to my “ying.” He even shared his malaria pills with me.
Jimmy was instrumental in helping me to put together our live Webcast on World AIDS Day. This was no small feat. Often without satellite phone or internet connections, he scrambled to figure out alternative ways of keeping in contact with our Webcast team in our American headquarters. What might be difficult to understand is that in the interior of Africa, internet services are still rudimentary because power often fails. Internet cafes are only open at certain times and dial-up is full of delays.
Speaking for Jimmy, I know he had a wonderful experience if not trying at times. Our Africa Walk was not a resort trip to a Caribbean paradise over Spring Break. We had to deal with corrupt police, tough crowds and sometimes, unreliable transportation. Some of our lodgings were nice but some were very basic, about 3 grades below a youth hostel. The last place we stayed, the toilet was missing its seat, mosquitoes loved us and ladies of the night were up and down the shady hallway all night -- but Jimmy always kept a smile on his face and very little seemed to disturb him. His penchant for friendliness and his laid back attitude helped him survive this trip in good health and spirits. Jimmy was a wonderful addition to this Walk and I’m glad he came.
HIV Prevention Cuts by Ignorant Politicians
HIV Prevention Cuts by Ignorant Politicians
I never like to involve our non-profit, charitable work with politics and I have studiously avoided doing that over many years. However, I was deeply frustrated the last week of January when 100% of all Republican Congressman and twelve Democrats voted against funding the proposed HIV prevention section in the President’s Stimulus Bill. They referred to these monies to educate teens about AIDS as “wasteful social engineering” and one called it “immoral.” What?!
This stimulus initiative is designed to promote jobs at a time of deep recession and rising unemployment. Do they have any idea how severe the cuts have been in school health departments over the last few years? Health educators and school nurses have been fired and laid off in droves. Check with your own local school district and hear the numbers. There is 40% less AIDS education in public schools today than existed in the early 1990s -- yet there has been a corresponding rise in teen HIV infections over that time. The CDC now reports that a startling 25% of all new cases of HIV in the U.S. occur among 13-19 year olds. When I began my doctorate at Harvard, that statistic was negligible – less than 5%, mostly from bad blood transfusions and mother-to-child transmission. Now 90-95% of adolescent HIV infections result from sexual transmission. Those horrific numbers can be prevented with enlightened education and positive social action.
Yet these obstructionists are the same politicians who demanded that federal funding over the past eight years go to “abstinence-only-before-marriage” programs (that all reputable research studies show do not work). Yet that kind of social engineering was acceptable because it was popular with their hard-core base. These federally-imposed restrictions scared many school districts away from providing medically accurate information to teens so they wouldn’t lose federal dollars for other necessities.
I always tell teens that abstinence and postponement of early sex are the wisest choices to avoid the sexual transmission of HIV -- because that argument is medically accurate. Yet, for youth who choose to be sexually active, I also tell explain the option of condom use as a medical prophylactic to prevent HIV and STDs. They deserve to hear the facts. Without adequate funding, schools cannot provide full health education. That is why TeenAIDS provides free training to any school that accepts our offer.
I understand the games that politicians must play but after years of teens getting infected needlessly, ignorant politicians should be held accountable.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment