VOICES THROUGH THE LENS

A CRACK IN THE HOMESTEAD

Our homestead has cracks everywhere. On the floor, the walls and the poles can’t hold any longer! They have been bitten by insects. The father, as the family head, has called a family meeting, seeking all of us to look and find if there are cracks in our rooms and take precautions.

“I want each of you, my children, to look carefully on the walls in your rooms to find out if there is any crack. Do it at your own time.” he says.

Recently, President Jakaya Kikwete, a head of the Nation, launched, Tanzania Bila Ukimwi, a National Campaign on HIV/AIDS Testing for every Tanzanian. The move is voluntary and free in terms of payment and convenience. Reports say there has been active participation by many citizens in finding if there is a crack in their rooms.

We need everyone’s serious involvement and focus in order to make it successful. Not only in finding out if there is a crack and keep quiet, but also in reporting it for common remedial action.

AIDS is a dangerous crack which needs participatory efforts to fill it. It should be all in the families, churches and mosques, offices, artists and everyone from works of life.

We should not leave this to the President or head of the family alone.

The aim is to highlight and draw attention to the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS within families and the community at large. As soon as one family member is affected, everyone in the family suffers, not only because of the human tragedy but also owing to economic difficulties resulting from rising healthcare costs and decreasing income.

Children are among the most vulnerable. By 2003, 15 million children under the age of 18 had been orphaned worldwide by HIV/AIDS. The “generation of orphans” is at a higher risk of being victim to discrimination or other abuses than children being brought up under better circumstances.

AIDS, an acronym for acquired immune deficiency syndrome, a disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, has become an epidemic, infecting tens of millions of people worldwide. The virus is transmitted from one individual to another through the exchange of body fluids (such as blood or semen), attacks white blood cells, thereby causing the body to lose its capacity against infection. As a result, many AIDS patients die of opportunistic infections that strike them. Let us face the crack with the filling solutions. END!