Rotary International Centennial Convention
HIV/AIDS Session, June 20, 2005, Chicago, IL
Speaker: Marion Bunch
[ copies of presentations are available in our download library ]
Hello Rotarians!! And a special hello to the family members of Rotarians who are here today – especially my own family. We feel honored that you have all joined us today. My deepest and most humble thanks go to president Glenn for asking me to put together this global, distinguished panel of experts on HIV/AIDS.
You know, even though I’ve spoken in lots of corners of the globe, I want you to know that this is a ‘big deal’ for me to be speaking here, now, today….
Yes, because it is an International Convention of Rotary,
Yes, because it is the Rotary Centennial Convention,
But mainly because hey, Chicago is my home town! Where this story I’m about to tell you all began…..
I imagine many of you are wondering:
Who is this Marion Bunch and how did she get involved in the battle against HIV/AIDS?
What does aids have to do with us? After all, we are upper middle class business people, and isn’t aids an inner city, poor person’s issue? Isn’t AIDS a homosexual issue?
And finally, you might ask, what can rotary do in the battle against aids that is sustainable, that makes a real difference? AIDS is so complex, AIDS is a mess!!!
So for the next few minutes, I’d like to try and answer these questions by sharing a story about this incredible journey I’ve been on fighting aids through rotary; discuss some current thinking about the pandemic; share a plan we’ve devised for aids orphans; and finally, share very specific ways in which Rotarians can help in this battle.
My story begins back in the days when I was just a little Irish catholic girl from (of all places) Evanston, IL, the home of Rotary. I was the youngest of 3 children raised in a strict culture by parents who were public school educators. It was such a happy time, such a safe and easy time, when the toughest thing I had to face was my two older brothers who were always trying to ditch me, pull my braids, just generally give me grief on the walk home from school.
Years later as I held my second born child in my arms, a boy named jerry,
(Slide one)
of course it never occurred to me that I would be burying him 28 years later of a deadly disease the world had never heard of until 1981, aids.
Because of jerry, my life’s journey has truly been one of extremes: much happiness and many blessings, but not in the corners of my life where I expected it. And deep sadness, but not when I expected it. Although my family and friends were very supportive through jerry’s illness and ultimate death, I still felt so isolated from society, so very lonely…Eleven years ago (and even today) aids in America is often considered to be amoral failure of some isolated few people, therefore not worth the time or effort to even think about it.
Then one day when I was sitting in my rotary meeting, I looked at the club bulletin and saw an article stating that past president Luis Giay declared a call to action on the aids issue. Right then and there, I felt a tap on my shoulder and a voice in my ear (you know who), that said “okay, mom, get up and get going. It’s been 3 years and its time to do something about it!!!”
From that day forward, my life literally changed course as I began working on aids through rotary. I went through a tremendous learning curve, and I did what I always do in my business – I did a thorough discovery, talking to experts, before coming up with a solution. Here is what I learned at the national and state level in the U.S.
(Slide two)
∑ chronic disease because of availability of anti retro viral drugs;
∑ we have about one million people living with HIV/AIDS
∑ however, new infections are on the increase both in the msm population and in the heterosexual group (primarily due to treatment optimism and no memory of the bad old days – and continual denial that it won’t happen to me!)
∑ Biggest concern is female youth who contract it in their teens but aren’t diagnosed until their 20s. They make up 89% of new infections among hetero. Group.
∑ The over 50 population is reaching epidemic proportions. After losing a spouse through death or divorce, they begin to date. It never occurs to them to use any protection at their age, so their naivety creates vast opportunity for HIV infection.
∑ In terms of ethnic groups, the African American group have become 78% of total HIV/AIDS cases.
∑ Finally, the southern and eastern states have the highest infection rate and it’s among women; as follows: NY, CA, FL, SC, and GA.
Back in my home state of Georgia, I learned that the teens were getting fairly well educated through health classes in their schools – so intellectually, they got the data, but they aren’t hearing it at gut level! You remember what you were like as teenagers!!! It was always going to happen to the other guy, and maybe that’s what your own teenager is saying to you right now!
So I called on Aid Atlanta, a well-known ASO… (That’s a key point, Rotarians; this disease demands partnerships because we are not the AIDS experts here!) Together we created a program for the middle and high schools where young adults who live with aids go into the schools to talk to the students about how easy it is to get HIV. They tell their personal story, and it is very sobering, very powerful. So far we have educated almost 200,000 students.
Because of the success of the program, my district said to go to the next Rotary International convention, in Buenos Aires. Two important things happened there. One was that I learned that AIDS is a stigma in every country in the world, not just the U.S.. And second, I had a fortuitous meeting with this incredible, Jim Shamblin. We created a partnership of two with a focus on aids…. And that’s the power of the linkages through rotary!!!
Thereafter, because of Jim’s efforts, I was asked to speak at multiple district and zone conferences, presidential conferences, in many places of the world, always meeting incredible Rotarians who encouraged me like frank and Gloria Rita Devlyn, now president Glenn and others.
Then one day I was asked to go to Africa, which really took my learning to the international level. Let’s take a moment to look at the global picture of this disease the world health organization calls “the most devastating disease humankind has ever faced.”
(Slide three)
First of all, there are 14,000 new HIV infections daily!!
This world map shows that AIDS is on every continent in the world, which is what pandemic means. I.E., on every continent, infected a significant number of people in that continent and has a significantly high death rate.
These numbers come from UNAIDS and are the middle of a range given by that organization.
(Slide four)
Let’s look at different continents and I’ll point out how the mode of transmission is different on different continents.
Let’s look at Africa, where each year it continues to get worse. It began as a couple’s disease here and still is. Where women have no rights to say no or to use protection.
There are about 13 million orphans on the continent now, with about 30 million projected by 2010.
In Eastern Europe and central Asia (Russian Federation and the Ukraine), injected drug use is how this disease began and continues today.
In Asia, I’d like to point out why everyone’s attention is on India and China. India has 17% of the world’s population and about 4.6 Million cases we know of. It started through sex workers and their clients but is now considered to be in the general population.
And china is worse because even though the prevalence rate is about 1% (like America) – but in china 1% equals 13 million people!!!! They have 20% of the world’s population in that country. HIV was initiated there through bad blood supplies coming over from Burma, and now a common practice is for people to sell blood for money.
Latin American has spots of serous concentrated epidemics.
And the Caribbean has high infection in 6 of the 7 countries, with Haiti being the worst.
(Slide five)
But the key learning point here is that women and children are the real targets of this disease.
Then
(Slide six)
For example, grannies and orphans are bearing the agricultural burden of sub-Saharan Africa today. Meet this grandmother I met on that first trip to Africa, and one of her ten grandchildren that she is raising by herself since all the kids’ parents died of aids. Grannies and orphans are also bearing the brunt of the agricultural burden in Africa, being the only ones to work the farms. I was so struck by the grannies fatalistic attitude and broken spirit.
(Slide seven)
And meet a couple of orphan children I met who loved our attention and having their picture taken in front of the township where they somehow live, no running water, little food unless stolen, but somehow continue to have these beautiful smiles….These are just little kids today, but as a Nigerian doctor told me when I visited there this year, these little ones are situated in a “perfect breeding ground for becoming future killers.” They have no expectations of life, given no love, abused, no education, little food, no life skills. This is why past secretaries of state Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright said to the world: “the biggest threat to the U.S. Borders is aids.”
Of all the meetings I had that first trip to Africa, the most significant one was to dr. Mark Ottenweller. I didn’t know it at the time, but it is clear to me today that it is one of the most important introductions in my life.
Soon after coming back from Africa, I spoke at a zone institute where past president Bhichai Rattakul heard me speak. He came up afterwards and said:: we must do something about the orphans, Marion.”
Shortly thereafter, I got an email from him (that was kinda like getting an email from the pope!), And it asked two questions: 1) what can rotary do to help the aids victims, especially the children; and 2) how much will it cost and how can we fund it?
Talk about tough questions, huh? I immediately called the 3 top doctors on this disease that I knew, -- dr. Mark, second, dr. Jim Curran (etc.), And dr. Rajiv Tandon of India. We worked on a plan, I submitted it to Bhichai, and he then asked me to present it in Nairobi at his presidential aids conference, and later I presented it again for president Jonathan in Johannesburg.
(Slide eight)
The plan is called ANCHOR, African Network for Children Orphaned and at risk.
This plan’s foundation is based (once again) on partnerships because we Rotarians need to align ourselves with an organization that has already developed a recognized best practice aids program, one that works! One that focuses on children and focuses on prevention.
You need to know that I interviewed a lot of organizations before I made choices, and I kept coming back to hope worldwide as the primary partner – why? Because they have been awarded a best practice label by world health for their aids program; because they are large enough on the continent to scale up and replicate quickly if significant funds were obtained; and because they had developed a sustainable program -- in other words, a program that teaches the Africans how to take care of themselves and their own, rather than always depending upon outside help. We must solve this issue in the villages of the world, not through throwing money and resources at the problem!!
(Slide nine)
With input from Rotary International board members, I developed the Rotarian fellowship for fighting aids so that a rotary entity could be a partner in this project.
Hope worldwide is the aids program expert partner.
We knew we needed to have an organization for monitoring and evaluating the results of our work. I called my old friend, Jim Curran, and asked if he wanted in. The answer was an immediate yes. He appointed dr. Martha Rogers as the lead from Emory on this project.
We knew we needed seed funding to help us get through the planning phase before we acquired the big funding dollars. We needed clout on the continent as well with government and other business leaders. I called the president of coke Africa and got a yes, and $50,000 in seed funding.
Finally, the funding a good friend, Sandy Thurman, who was the white house aids czar for president Bill Clinton, said I should go after the aids funding president Bush had committed to Africa.
We did just that, and
(Slide ten)
18 months later, in early 2005, we were awarded $8.1 Million dollars.
This project has a goal to help 165,000 orphans and train 40,000 caregivers in the communities of six countries. We have Canadian Rotarians that are beginning work with us to obtain one million dollars from the Canadian government for a 7th country in our program.
Before I turn this over to dr. Martha to tell us more about the orphans’ plight, I want to make an important point: none of this would have happened without the linkages created for me through rotary, and the power of rotary’s name to gain attention, and the ability to mobilize huge numbers of people into action at the community level.
