Friday, October 13, 2006

To Canberra With Love

After a week of putting up posters, scuttling around uni, distributing flyers, chalking, hanging up banners, spilling wax over the table cloth and desperate prayer, the Melbourne Uni Club United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) film screening and public forum on HIV/AIDS is finally over!

Both the film and forum were profoundly touching for me. Everyone go watch the film Yesterday. It was only the second time I watched it that it hit me, the desperation, the stigma of Aids, the helplessness. So beautiful. Just basic things like, she can't get to the clinic and see a doctor, was beyond me. It was touching to put a humanising face to an entire generation in Africa wiping out at a exponential rate, and another generation of orphans the world doesn't remember.

Today the forum was a huge success. A mother who was living with Aids talked about her experience, and her optimism and matter-of-factness touched me.

She said, "When you tell people about a crisis that happened to you, you end up looking after them. I have to come to grips with my illness before they can."

I shivered when she said "I am keeping a diary for my daughter, just in case I don't make it to tell her."

Now that the hustle of the Aids Awareness week is over, I will be leaving for Canberra tomorrow for the Voices for Justice Micah Challenge National Gathering. Micah Challenge is a global Christian organisation working for and with poor communities around the world, alongside the Make Poverty History Campaign. We will be visiting politicians to discuss, in particular, the G20 meeting, debt, trade and aid. There will also be seminars on faith, politics and justice, and the political processes in Australia. I am really excited, and it would be a good opportunity to see Chris and Amma from my Upenn life. I also need a break and get out of Melby for a bit before I start the crazy essay writing spree of 4 essays in 3 weeks.

Will be back with pictures soon!

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