The first time I ever visited the Umkhanyakude district in South Africa was to celebrate the launch of the initial Mpilonhle mobile health unit, which my charity -- the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project -- helped to fund. Mpilonhle is an organization that provides innovative health and education programs to this rural district's schools and communities. Run by Dr. Michael Bennish, Mpilonhle uses mobile health units to treat individuals' medical, psychological, and sociological needs. This care would not otherwise be available in these areas due to the extreme level of poverty.
During this first trip, Dr. Bennish educated me on the challenges individuals face in the Umkhanyakude district. The statistics blew me away. For example, youth growing up in this region have a 50% chance of contracting HIV in their lifetime. 50%! How could that be? With all of the resources today, I found it heartbreaking that people in this country, in my home country, continue to face infection rates like this. Upon learning these facts, there was no question in my mind that my Africa Outreach Project was in the right place to lend our support, and we continue to work with Mpilonhle and their mobile health units.
The Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project develops awareness, generates supporting funds, and participates in the enhancement of Mpilonhle's medical units and mobile computer labs. The beauty of the units is that they bring resources to communities that have no means of transportation and are miles away from health services. Mpilonhle's computer labs provide basic computer literacy to students and community members. Through the work CTAOP and Mpilonhle are doing together, many local individuals, especially children, are seeing doctors and experiencing technology for the very first time.
Over the last two-and-a-half years, I have seen Mpilonhle grow -- adding two additional mobile health units and now serving over 10,000 students and 20,000 community members.
Every time I return to South Africa, I can see and feel the difference in the students we serve. This past December, I went back down to visit the students and their villages in the Umkhanyakude district. Traveling with the mobile health units, I went from school to school expressing our support and experiencing what the organization has begun to do for communities. Meeting with local leaders, we worked together to develop new ways to better serve the population in the district.
I was also fortunate enough to sit in on a sexual education class led by an Mpilonhle staff member. Rather than shying away from the topic of sex education, the students in the class were so engaged and honest. I was in awe at the fact that these teens volunteered to demonstrate the correct use of prophylactics using prosthetics. There was a comfort between the youth and the session leaders that showed a desire to protect themselves from the spread of disease. They were willing to push their personal discomfort aside and engage in an education that would inevitably save their lives.
After my visit, Dr. Bennish told me that 75% of the students at the schools want to be tested for HIV, which is an incredibly high number. Students at these schools want to know their status, and they feel safe enough with the Mpilonhle staff to be tested. It's an incredible success and a testament to the impact of the mobile units.
I am excited for the continued service we are providing to the residents of South Africa. Sometimes it seems like change cannot happen, but if you can commit yourself to a cause and to the people, change is absolutely possible.
WATCH
Charlize Theron: Hope in the City of Joy
Dr. Susan Corso: The Generosity Plan
But as long as Worl Bnak, WMF, and FED dominate the planet it is not even remotely likely.
Don't get me wrong: Helping people is incredibly important.
But it is more important to make that help stick. And for that to be possible we have to stop the powers that be from misusing it for profit. #
South Africa today is even more repressed than under Apartheid. All the torturing, murdering, raping guys every decent human being has to hate from his guts now have more power than they ever did. - Thanks to those instruments of dictatorship: World Bank, IMF, and FED.
Bush had the audacity to stand up in the UN an tell South Africa "Medicine is not cheap. That's free market." when begged for the right to produce ADIS treatment themselves for their sick and dying population.
The fight for their lives can not have an inkling of a chance as long as the free market makes profit letting them die. As long as we do not send the parasites to jail for leaving people to die for their own profit we not only have no chance at making things better.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/30/AR2006123000941.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18518909
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/bush-triples-fu/
Rod Martin, Jr.
Cebu, Philippines
http://www.RodMartinJr.com
Everytime you shop at Wal-Mart you help China; remember virtually everything except foods and paper goods are manufactured over in China. The next time you go shopping at any department store, just try to find some manufactured good made in the good ole U.S.A.
There is a website, www.madeintheusa.com Check it out.
Peace!
another thing you can do is buy African ETFs like PMNA and Commodity ETFs like GCC.
I did. Not great return but steady, and actually rise when overall market dips.
I agree that private investment can do way more good than aid from the UN, World Bank and Western governments that is mostly sitting in the corrupt government coffers. Even the Live Aid was mostly wasted I understand.
I would not give a penny to the climate change folks either. Environmental aid has to start with boots on the ground, not transfer of wealth, which does not exist.
China does not tie their investments to human rights abuses by African regimes either. There would be no aid just about anywhere in Africa if that was the case. China is no beacon of human rights, but you don't need me to tell you the progress they made when they let capitalism seep in, while keeping a strong central government. I have been to China three times and was unbelievable progress in just the 8 years that I went there.. I hope that work with African nations as well.
Keep up the excellent work. It must be an incredibly heartbreaking job, being around so many children that are suffering, but no worthy cause is an easy one. Onwards and upwards pretty lady.