Salem Award Winner Urges Help for Africa AIDS Epidemic

The Salem News (April 28, 2006)

By Ben Casselman, Staff Writer

SALEM – Paula Donovan isn't one to sit on the sidelines.

Since 2000, the Gloucester resident has worked in Africa fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic that has claimed 16 million lives. She has worked with UNICEF, organized an International Women's AIDS Run in Kenya and now works as a senior adviser to Stephen Lewis, the United Nations' special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

And while she doesn't expect everyone to move to Africa, Donovan speaks in harsh words of those who turn away from human suffering rather than trying to end it.

"I think that we need to abandon this notion that when people are fatigued by hearing so much bad news that we should coddle them," Donovan said. "It's just not acceptable to have such a low threshold for hearing about other people's misery."

This week, Donovan was honored as the 14th recipient of the Salem Award for Human Rights and Social Justice. Mayor Kim Driscoll and Salem State College President Nancy Harrington presented the award, which is given annually in memory of the victims of the 1692 witch trials.

The Salem News spoke with Donovan about the award, her work and how people can help fight the AIDS epidemic.

Salem News: How did you first get involved in international development work?

Paula Donovan: I simply applied for a job. I was working in the nonprofit sector in Bridgeport, Conn., and I applied for a job in New York at what is now called the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, that is a fundraising and advocacy organization that raises American awareness of what UNICEF is doing.…From there, I went to work for UNICEF, where I was working on a breast-feeding promotion program. … While we were trying to get the women to understand the benefits of breast-feeding, the connection between breast milk and HIV transmission was learned…so that's how I got into HIV/AIDS work.

SN: Why did you apply for that first UNICEF job?

PD: I was working in anti-poverty programs in Bridgeport, Conn. It was interesting work and important work, but the more I got involved…the more I realized that my real passion would be international poverty work. The issues are so much greater. The need is so much more appalling.

SN: Tell me about the International Women's AIDS Run (in Kenya in 2003). What were you hoping to accomplish?

PD: Women make up 58 percent of all those infected. … The AIDS crisis is definitely becoming a women's crisis. …

At the same time, (women) do nearly all of the caregiving. … When people get sick, they go home to die, and they go into the care of the women in their household, whether it's a mother, a sister, an aunt or even a girl child. … (Women) are really keeping the continent together and have been doing so for two decades. They're really the life raft of the continent. … This really eats into any progress we were making on women's development. …

I wanted to bring attention to that issue. … (The run) was an eye-opener. … Suddenly when (people) learned there was a women's AIDS run and it was dedicated to the women who had cared for the sick or dying, everyone said, 'Oh right, my mother cared for my father, or my brother.' It was a way to raise awareness of something that, just under the surface, really everyone already knew.

SN: Did it work?

PD: It just galvanized the city of Nairobi and the country as a whole. The president flagged it off, the first lady ran. … Everyone knew about it. … It was absolutely amazing … There were Muslim girls in headdresses with long clacks on who were participating, and certainly they had never taken part in something like that. … It was quite a sight, and it stunned people to see so many people … 11,000 women who are not angry and not storming the citadel don't gather in African cities.

SN: I'm sure that was an optimistic moment, but overall are you optimistic about AIDS in Africa?

PD: I force myself to be optimistic. There are glimmers of hope. There are places where the infection rates are actually starting to go down—Kenya is one. But … if we just look at today … people would be paralyzed with the enormity of the problem … 40 million people suffering from something for which there is no cure, and so few of them receiving the treatment that makes it a chronic condition in the Western world.

There's more attention being paid, but the relative attention being paid and the relative money being spent to address this issue is just so minuscule compared to the needs. We need $15 billion next year. … To put that in perspective, we spend $20 billion each year on ice cream, $38 billion on hair care, and that's in the United States alone. You hear these huge sums, but then you have to put it in perspective.

SN: Why do we spend so little?

PD: I think that people in the West just don't perceive that global problems are theirs to address. I think we've been misled by our leaders and political figures over the years that charity begins at home and it's OK if it ends there as well. …

I think Africa is still perceived by many in the United States as a mysterious, dangerous, predominantly underdeveloped part of the world that has nothing to do with them. It's not until people read quite a lot about the continent or actually visit it that they realize that it's not mysterious at all, that it's actually a lot like here in many ways.

SN: What advice do you have for people who do want to get involved?

PD: I would say start with whatever you're able to do. There simply isn't anything that's too insignificant. Every tiny little effort helps, and cumulatively, a country the size and with the resources of the U.S., if everyone did a small thing we'd start to, for one thing, feel that this is our problem to solve, and for another thing actually start to solve it …

I would say go online and find an organization in the way you would in the wake of a Katrina or a tsunami or the World Trade Center. People felt a need to personally respond, and they used their own initiative to find a way to do what they could do.

SN: Can something like the Salem Award make a difference?

PD: Absolutely. It's a ripple effect. One person in a community who sits through first the panel discussion and then an advocacy speech like mine, than gets a little more interested and tells a couple more people, who tell a couple more people. … We underestimate how easy it is for each of us as individuals to get the word out about something we care about.

Reprinted with permission from The Salem News.