11 Apr 2008 by Kaoru Hattori
Tags: My Experience with Orphans, Why I am Speaking Out
It is said that more than 40 million people in the world are infected by HIV. To confirm this with my own eyes I traveled to Africa, the problem had not yet come to Japan, and there I was presented with another reality: the children left behind by AIDS… the existence of AIDS orphans.
The first reason I started this activity was hearing about it from the president of PLAS (an AIDS orphans support NGO located in Japan). I felt a lot of sympathy for their plight because many young people in Japan are not aware of the problem of AIDS orphans.
When I visited Uganda in Africa, I saw how concerned many of the locals were and how hard they worked for the sake of AIDS orphans. They constructed schools and orphanages, even though many were living
in extreme poverty themselves. Many of the locals took what little money they had and tried to rally their community together to help solve this problem. Many did this despite not even knowing the next time they would eat.
Many AIDS orphans suffer from outright discrimination. Some orphans are taken in by various local families, but the families do not treat the orphans as their own child… many don't even get a daily meal, instead being only fed leftovers. Many are forced into manual labor; many AIDS orphans were sent 5 km everyday to draw water from the well.
Many do not have the luxury of receiving an education. There is an increased risk of them becoming street children or prostitutes. Children who cannot be brave in the face of such discrimination leave home and gather to live together in houses that they've built themselves.
Listening to these current conditions and feeling powerless myself, I was shocked and wanted to do something for them and I joined together with others to establish PLAS.
Right now, I am currently a Japanese exchange student in Chicago. I hope I can do something in America since America's status as the world's lone superpower has a big influence around the world for better or worse, including the African continent. And while many Americans are aware of AIDS in Africa, I feel like there should be more support. That's why we started this project from zero.
The world has been aware of HIV/AIDS for more than 20 years. There are many projects which focus on dealing with the issue of HIV/AIDS. However, these projects ignore the children who are also affected by this problem, so now we need to turn our attention to them. More and more, we must act to prevent the increased spread of HIV/AIDS, to stop the growing crisis in Africa, and above all to support the AIDS orphans. First, we must make more people aware of the current status of AIDS orphans and the problems they're facing. From there, we must work together to take action.
For the support of AIDS orphans and a better society, we ask for your cooperation in our efforts.
