World AIDS Day is this Saturday. And for at least three Islanders, it is a day of action.
Dec. 1 will be the 20th World AIDS Day, a day dedicated to recognizing the worldwide HIV/AIDS pandemic. In addition to raising money to battle the international health crisis, the day is about increasing awareness, fighting prejudices and improving safe-sex education.
To Islanders Ryan Ahern, Paul Barrett and Maddie Cary, it is important to acknowledge that this global disease must not disappear from our hearts and minds as so much remains to be done.
As an associate pastor at the MI Presbyterian Church, Barrett has been instrumental in getting the issue of AIDS to the attention of his congregation since he joined as a youth minister in 2001.
He and other church leaders, as well as parishioners, decided to take the lead among faith communities to fight the spread of AIDS.
“A few years ago, I looked around the area and found that faith communities that had worship services on World AIDS Day were few,” Barrett said. “I realized we could have a time to remember the reality of AIDS and have a chance to respond.”
According to UNAIDS estimates, there are now 39.5 million people living with HIV, including 2.3 million children. During 2006, some 4.3 million people became newly infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35.
Since coming to the Island, Barrett, who has HIV, has organized members of the MIPC to participate in the Seattle AIDS walk, and began working with the Seattle-based Lifelong AIDS Alliance. The Presbyterian Church also sponsors children around the world, mostly in Southeast Asia and South Africa.
Barrett said that many faith communities need to look past some of the ideological differences in order to work together with secular organizations involved in the fight against AIDS.
“We are trying to be a different voice and say the church really needs to be a part of the solution. We need to be leaders in this, not passive participants. By laying aside some biases or disagreements, we may find out we agree on more things.”
Around 95 percent of people with HIV/AIDS live in developing nations. But HIV today is still a threat to men, women and children on all continents around the world. While drug treatments are becoming increasingly effective and available, socio-economic issues have a huge impact on contracting and fighting the disease.
Barrett said he feels fortunate he has access to top-notch medical care, understanding friends and family, and is able to live openly about his health.
“I am out there in the public eye, and it is easy to see me in good health and not see a problem with AIDS,” Barrett said. “My situation is certainly not the case for everyone living with HIV.”
For another Islander, the reality of the global HIV/AIDS crisis motivated him to go to Africa. MIHS graduate and now first-year medical student at the UW, Ryan Ahern spent a year in the poor, rural South African community of Numlaco in the Eastern Cape, a region devastated by AIDS. Ahern worked with an organization that is focused on improving the nation’s medical care system. He worked at a rural clinic that serves about 500 patients a month, with as many as 150 in one day.
“It’s very hectic,” Ahern said. “There is so much need and so little time. The drugs are there, but the failure is in the health care system. We are trying to decentralize the 21 community health clinics, to spread out HIV care.”
The goal is to bring up the standard of care in the network’s rural clinics. Ahern and the organization, called Sibusiso, want to designate pick-up establishments where villagers can get their medicines and take them home.
In addition to working at the local clinic, Ahern also spent time working at a regional hospital, a 900-bed facility serving about one million people.
He said he became involved in AIDS treatment after he met Barrett while in high school.
“I hope to get people interested in getting involved in one of the burning issues of our time,” he said. “It’s about understanding that this is an issue we can do something about.”
Mercer Island High School senior Maddie Cary is another Islander raising funds and awareness of HIV/AIDS. She put together a concert for her culminating project that will be held at the Boys and Girls Club on Saturday. Cary said she is donating the proceeds to YouthAIDS, an education and prevention program that uses media, pop culture, music, theater and sports to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS by reaching 600 million young people in more than 60 countries.
Cary said she wants to go into music management or possibly organize concerts as her profession, so she decided to do a concert for her culminating project, a graduation requirement.
“I think a lot of people are aware and becoming more educated,” Cary said, “but AIDS is a disease, something teenagers need to be more aware of. I hope that by being realistic about sex and preventing AIDS by using contraceptives [condoms], teens open their eyes and realize it could affect them. They need to be safe and more realistic.”
Ahern will speak about his work in Africa at Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle tomorrow at 6 p.m. MIHS students will play an all-acoustic concert at the Boys and Girls Club, Saturday. The show begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $5 in advance, $7 at the door.
