Seeing beyond
the secrets
Greetings to all our loyal readers, and a warm
welcome to those who have recently joined Sondela’s
circles of contact.
Those who are most aware of how HIV and AIDS affect
all of us - through our work, our families, our
neighbourhoods, or in wider public spaces –
are finding ourselves having to speak louder,
and for longer, in order to strengthen prevention,
care and treatment efforts.
Those who remain distant from the face of the
pandemic will soon have to do more than hear about
its effects with closed hearts and minds –
they will find themselves listening intently,
and unfolding their arms.
Official reports issued during the last few months
are telling us how hospital and clinic staff are
struggling to care for patients because there
are too few nurses, doctors and pharmacists to
cope with the need for services, and their own
health is failing. Our schools are losing highly
trained teachers to AIDS, and the rate of teenage
pregnancy is higher than ever. Food production
in our country is threatened by illness and death
from AIDS, which deepens poverty in rural and
urban areas. More and more youngsters are sleeping
on our city streets, and violence against women
and children seems unstoppable.
So many of our fellow South Africans are living
and dying in silence, afraid of losing their jobs,
partners, families, congregations, friends. How
can we rise above this unfolding devastation and
keep our hope alive for the future? As social
beings, how are we to cope with the realisation
that the act of loving union and creation has
become, through HIV/AIDS, the cause of loneliness
and destruction?
Our hope lies in the open, generous spirit of
so many special human beings among us, who care
too deeply to blame and shame, and who never give
up their belief that we are here together - not
to see through one another, but to see one another
through. Every man, woman and child, whether they
are HIV-negative or HIV-positive, has something
valuable to teach the world.
Such special people appear in this issue –
not only those who lead the way, like Anastasia
Kweyama from Ntshongweni, and Phumzile Ndlovu
from Bergville, but also those around them who
are not named individually, but who join together
freely to inspire courage in each other and in
those who are isolated. They care because they
know that at some stage, they too have been cared
for, and might one day, in turn, need someone
to care for them. The story of the various sets
of people partnering to produce the Sinikithemba
vegetable garden is another example of this: weaving
themselves together with time, energy and ideas
to tend the soil, plant the seeds, help their
growth and gather the food so desperately needed
for health and strength.
It is this basic sense of deep relationship and
belonging, between human beings and with the land,
that will fly in the face of all the pain, fear,
division, rejection and aggression in our society.
Young and old, rich and poor, man and woman, people
of every faith, culture and race, know in their
own way what these hardships feel like. HIV/AIDS
is a human emergency that unearths everything
we share, so that in the very suffering it causes,
lies the key to healing and fresh hope for the
future. Speaking out, reaching out, lifting each
other up, standing strong together … coming
closer. Come into the circle and tell us your
story.
COME CLOSER! CONTACT US:
Judith King – Editor
HIVAN (Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking), c/o Public
Affairs Annex
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041
Tel: (031) 260 2975
Fax: (031) 260 2013
e-mail: judithk@hivan.org.za
Website: www.hivan.org.za
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