| Aids Foundation - "Africa Alive Foundation" - Part I | | | | or sometimes ten grandchildren because their parents |
| My religious education classes taught me that the | | | | are dead. You know they are out there, you know |
| road to heaven was smooth, straight and paved with | | | | them by name, and that is the reality from whence |
| gold but up until 53 months ago I had thought that if | | | | we came. Like soldiers on the battlefield, we now |
| there was a God, she must have a strange sense of | | | | need to take up arms and fight. Fight the hunger, |
| humour for I was definitely not on that road. Or | | | | fight poverty, fight the lack of education and, most |
| perhaps in this incarnation she had accidentally handed | | | | importantly, fight the lack of medication that is killing |
| me the wrong road map. My life had been a series of | | | | our people daily. |
| sporadic events, convoluted roads and numerous | | | | I don't think our meeting is a coincidence. I think you |
| unrelated specks scattered through time. Then | | | | are reading this article for a reason, or maybe |
| suddenly a fierce whirlwind swirled all around me, | | | | because it simply reminded you of Africa. Rremember |
| swirling and twirling until it blew me 17,000 kilometres | | | | the hunger, the poverty and the hardship |
| away from home. What I didn't realise was that | | | | experienced by our people, and remember that |
| those events were all interlinked, and were tightly | | | | together we can find a solution to Africa's problems. |
| weaving the very fabric of my being. | | | | There are enough intelligent people in the world |
| My name is Getrude Matshe. I am 39 years old and I | | | | today, enough gifted individuals who can make a |
| was born on one of the most fascinating continents | | | | difference in Africa, and the only way we can uplift |
| in the world. Africa is a tough continent that can take | | | | our people, the only way we can uplift our race, is by |
| the heart out of your breast and crush it into dust, | | | | doing it for ourselves. For hundreds of years we |
| and the sad thing is that no one will mind. That is just | | | | have sat by and looked to the west for solutions. |
| the way life is; no one will mind. | | | | For hundreds of years we have sat with our hands |
| My book "Born on the Continent - Ubuntu" is a | | | | stretched out begging for world aid, waiting for help, |
| remembrance and an awakening. It is a reminder to | | | | waiting for medication to fight this pandemic that has |
| people like me, people who were born on the | | | | ravaged our beloved continent. |
| continent; to remember where we came from. | | | | Well, my brother, my sister, help is not on its way. |
| Unfortunately, when most of us succeed and leave | | | | Help is not coming. We are the help, you and I. We |
| the continent we forget where we came from, we | | | | have survived this disease for a reason, and it is only |
| have such short memories of what we have left | | | | through our own efforts that we will be able to |
| behind. For once your stomach is full and you are no | | | | rebuild our beautiful African continent. So please pass |
| longer hungry. The urge to help those who are still | | | | on this baton, pass on this way of thinking to |
| hungry fades away. I hope my book will invoke some | | | | everyone you encounter, everyone you speak to. |
| remembrance of the motherland and all we have left | | | | Let's solve our own problems and let's solve them at |
| behind. | | | | a micro level by helping our immediate families, and |
| For those of you who have visited Africa, or who | | | | then extending a helping hand to everybody else |
| have lived there before, these memories are for you | | | | around us if we can. We can no longer rely on the |
| too. Africans scattered in the African Diaspora need | | | | west to give us aid. We can no longer wait with |
| to remember that we have survived one of the | | | | hands outstretched like the beggars we have been |
| worst pandemics the 21st century has ever seen, | | | | for centuries. |
| the disease called AIDS. To have survived this is | | | | A dandelion scatters its seeds as far a field as |
| nothing short of a miracle. We are in the midst of an | | | | possible to ensure the survival of that seed. A tree |
| undeclared war, a war that has left Africa ravaged | | | | produces sweet, succulent fruit to ensure that it |
| by illness and disease, and you and I are the | | | | attracts birds and animals to eat the fruit and carry |
| survivors. We have survived for a reason. | | | | the seeds to more fertile ground. And so, too, Africa |
| My personal mission in this life is to try to make a | | | | has dispersed her children into what we now know |
| difference to as many people on the continent as I | | | | as the African Diaspora. I am one of those children, |
| can. If only I can sow the seed, and leave my | | | | and so are you. We are the seed that has landed on |
| footprint in the sands of time, my life purpose will | | | | fertile ground, and our survival will ensure the |
| have been fulfilled. I have survived in order to help | | | | continuation of our dying race. |
| those who could not help themselves - the sick, the | | | | Statistics show that 25 million Africans are infected |
| dying and the HIV orphans in Africa. You, too, could | | | | with HIV or AIDS. Sixty percent of the world's AIDS |
| make a difference to at least one person in your life. | | | | sufferers are Africans and 16 million Africans have |
| It could be a relative, a child or an elderly grandparent | | | | already died in the pandemic. AIDS has orphaned 12 |
| who has been left to look after three or four or five | | | | million African children. |