Everyone knows the old adage "If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime."
Edit: Okay, thank you everyone who commented on my usage of an inane and inaccurate cliche. I do realize that there is much more wrong with the world and poverty-stricken areas specifically other than a lack of "fishing" skills... or any other skills. I now also know that fishing is no longer a sustainable source of food. I was trying to represent the side of the story saying that the problem with poverty isn't really a lack of money, just like the problem with HIV education isn't really a lack of information. There is a lot of money in the world, and we have a lot of knowledge about HIV. The problem is... distribution. It's broken systems and people who gain by maintaining a status quo. And THAT is what I'm trying to fix.
In the spirit of that timeless wisdom, I will be travelling to South Africa this summer to provide HIV and life skills education to children and teens in an area devastated by the disease. Many of these children have been orphaned because of AIDS.
Read on to learn about my trip, why I'm going, and how you could even help!
In case you don't know me (which you probably don't!), I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Megan Riley. I am a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in Medical Microbiology and Immunology with a certificate in Computer Science. So, I'm a nerd who loves diseases and computers. I am a member of the marching band, which eats up my free time like its going out of style. My boyfriend, who I've written about before, is currently deploying for a tour in Iraq as a member of the Army National Guard.
Although I do plan to write more diaries on this organization and trip here at Daily Kos, you can also follow my exploits (including the training I'm doing now) at my blog here. I'll try to make it interesting!
My trip to South Africa will be with a small organization based out of Madison, Wisconsin called African Youth Outreach. This is a nonprofit, non-governmental, secular organization that was formed only a few years ago by an enterprising young couple and for the past few summers have sent small teams to South Africa to help educate children there. These teams run camps for children from ages 6-21 at Ingwavuma Orphan Care, which is in the KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa. This is in the eastern, coastal part of the country. This year AYO is expanding to send another team to the De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Trust, which helps feeds orphans in the area.
My friend Ken was one of AYO's volunteers last year, and I will be going this year for three weeks in June and July. We will run two week-long camps, split up by age. At both camps we will provide age-appropriate education about HIV, safe sex, and healthy living choices (including information about drug and alcohol abuse). We've been meeting to train for this for months now and have been trying to quickly absorb piles of essential information, including lessons on basic Zulu.
I think that this is an especially important service when we consider Pope Benedict XVI's recent and widely-publicized trip to Africa where he stressed the important of abstinence and derided condom usage as ineffective. In a continent where approximately 22 million people were infected by HIV at the end of 2007, with a potential additional 1.9 million newly infected that year (source), to preach against condom usage is practically criminal.
Because I am working with such a small organization and because they're working so hard to continually expand to new areas of South Africa (and even run some camps here in Madison, WI for local youths) we are faced by continual problems when it comes to finance and procuring supplies needed by both our educational camps and by the orphans themselves. Therefore, I am reaching out to everyone I know and can to try and help, in whatever way they can. This is an area of the world where very little can go a very long way.
I am trying to raise money for AYO on my own behalf and have a donation page here, all of which will go directly to AYO.
All donations are tax-deductible! I know, I have some wonderful timing, writing this just after April 15th.
If you are interested in the organization but don't want to donate through FirstGiving, I encourage everyone interested to learn more about AYO at their website and use their donation page. If you want to do so on my behalf my name is Megan Riley, but if you don't that's okay too! I am much more interested in raising money for the organization and the orphans at IOC than getting credit for it.
If you live near the Madison, WI area you can help in many ways. We are currently accepting donations of the following items:
*tylenol
*motrin
*colored pencils
*markers
*erasers- pencil top and big ones
*pens
*rulers
*pencils
*little pencil sharpeners
*index cards
*calculators
*stickers
*beanie babies
*soccer balls and other sport stuff
If you have any of these you can get them to us by either mailing them to AYO at
African Youth Outreach
C/O Alexander Kendziorski
406 Sethne Court
Monona, WI 53716
USA
or you can contact me at mariley2@wisc.edu and I will do everything in my power to pick said items up and get them to AYO. Promise.
We are also holding an event called "Drumming For Hope" on May 3rd in Madison at the Goodman Community Center. This will feature an African Drum Circle (open to all!), a visit from a penguin courtesy of the local Vilas Zoo, some kids activities, and much more! Click the link above for more information!
As a poor college student, I have nothing to offer back except my eternal gratitude, the promise to write more diaries, and later some amazing pictures from a fantastic part of the world.