World AIDS Day

Tomorrow happens to be World AIDS Day. A day of awareness on the health emergency that threatens to take the lives of millions around the world. It is interesting that the day receives so very little attention. Over at the ONE campaign they recently posted on their blog the up-to-date figures on the AIDS pandemic. According to the statistics 33.2 million people are living with HIV/AIDS globally; 2.5 million new infections occurred in 2007; and 2.1 million people died, or 5 700 people per day from HIV/AIDS in 2007. The sheer scale of these figures is enough to make a grown man cry.

I have now wrote a couple of posts on AIDS and a couple of books I have found that really create some perspective on this problem. In our increasingly interdependent state on one another it is entirely surprising that we don't have more dialogue and conversation going. Where are the news stories? Where are the public service announcements? It needs to be talked about, it needs to be HEARD. Our silence only increases the stigma placed upon the disease.

Just this past week an article in the Toronto Star broke the news that the Canadian government was diverting funds from community AIDS programs to help boost its AIDS medication program announced earlier in the year in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. How about they just increase funding altogether instead of shuffling it around? Of all the surplus that has been announced why can't we afford to spend a little extra on AIDS programs? As one of the G8, or wealthiest nations in the world, it is our responsibility to take this emergency seriously!

While it isn't all bad, and we have certainly made strides over the last few years, we have to realize this isn't going away. The current campaign circuit for the Democratic nominations down in the U.S. has yet to address where the candidates stand on AIDS research, poverty reduction, global debt relief. This requires a grassroots conversation. It requires that we force it onto the agenda. We need more than a few celebrities to take notice and create groundswell action. It requires that you and I participate. It starts with a few and the few bring with them many. Instead of waiting to join the fray how about we start the fray? Ask your teacher if you can start the conversation in your class, bring it up at the water cooler at work, send an email to your friends and family, not to ask for money but to ask for comments, to ask for actions.

We have the snowball rolling, but it needs to pick up speed. Give it a push.

Smaller World, Bigger Community

It is a small world. It sounds like a cliche but it really is not. More and more we are seeing the impact of actions around the world having reverberating implications geographically far away. Some of the largest threats that face us now and in the future are global threats.
It is about time we start thinking of the world as just one big community. If everyone felt like a child in Africa, or a grandparent in India, or a farmer in China, were in fact our neighbors, then it would be a heck of a lot more difficult to ignore their needs.
Despite how much smaller the world has become with our myriad of means for communication; the internet, television, phone, etc. we have yet to warm to the idea that we are all in fact now one big community.
Social websites have become a place to congregate, Facebook is the next big open source hit, MySpace, if it were a country, would be the 8th largest in the world. We are all neighbors. Collaboration in the workplace, where an MBA grad in China starts work on a project when a co-worker in Canada goes to sleep, has become the next big wave in workplace productivity. The world is shrinking, which is both a good and bad thing. It is up to us, however, to start spreading the word - we will not stand by and watch our neighbor suffer and die.
This idea is somewhat difficult to wrap your head around but Bono's organization ONE sums it up best by simply saying we are all One. I also like Desmond Tutu's description of the word Ubuntu, which means 'I am because you are'. We are more than ever interconnected, which means like never before we are able to work together in harmony. Lets just embrace our small world with our large community. It is here to stay.