nosh

Today it is our – Trevor and mine – sixth month anniversary! I can barely believe it myself, but we have officially been housemates for six months now. And that means that we have been interning for GRS Kimberley for six months as well. I wanted to give Trevor an “anniversary” present today, but I wasn’t sure what to get him without breaking my budget (I am trying to spend no more than R1000 – what the average coach makes – this month). So I settled on something we have both deprived ourselves of for nine days – a Nosh bar. And this delicious hazelnut nougat and caramel bar covered in chocolate really hit the spot!

Other than that one special treat, today has been business as usual. First thing this morning I worked on some finance stuff. After that I went with Coach Big Eyes to Emmanuel in order to recruit some classes for both Skillz 1.1 and Generation Skillz. And my afternoon was spent mailing things to Cape Town and talking with Thuso about M&E and Kim’s budget.

But I do want to commemorate my halfway point in some way and I think the best way to do that is to remind everyone – and myself – why I am living and working in Kimberley, South Africa. I’m not here so I can travel all across sub-Saharan Africa. I’m not here to play soccer. And I’m not here to have crazy adventures with interns and coaches. I am here to contribute, in what little way I can, to efforts aimed at fighting what most people call the worst public health crisis of our time: the HIV epidemic.

At the end of 2009, 33.3 million people, including 5.6 million South Africans, were living with HIV.  During 2009 alone, 2.6 million people became infected with HIV worldwide, and 1.8 million of these infections were in sub-Saharan Africa. And last year HIV killed more than 260,000 people in South Africa – almost half of all those who died in the country. Since the beginning of the epidemic, nearly 30 million have died.

This map shows the relative population size of countries.

But the real shock regarding the epidemic is that even though people in sub-Saharan Africa make up only 12.3% of the world’s population, they account for 68% of the people living with HIV. In other words, two out of every three people living with HIV lives in sub-Saharan Africa.

this map shows the relative HIV infection "size" of countries.

In the face of these numbers however, there is hope. For starters, knowledge about HIV – how it is contracted and spread, how it can be prevented and how to treat HIV infections – is spreading. In April 2010, 5.38 million South Africans were living with HIV, which is actually an increase from 5.2 million infections in 2008. But this increase has not been attributed to an increase in new infections, but rather to an increase in the number of people that are receiving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). In South Africa people living with HIV can receive ARVs free from government clinics. In fact, the South African government now runs the world’s largest anti-retroviral program in the world, according to BBC.

But the bottom line is that HIV is preventable. It is even possible for a mother who is born HIV positive to give birth to a child that is not HIV positive. And the task that GRS has taken on – that I have taken on – is to give people information so that they can make healthy decisions and become part of the fight against HIV.  So here’s to another six months during which I will have the chance to educate people, inspire people, and mobilize people to stop the spread of HIV.