02/10/2025
Hope for the Best Luyiira
I am writing this post with a heavy heart. Last September I was able to spend a month in Uganda with the beautiful communities my NGO supports. Each participant from our Reproductive Health Workshop in 2019 received me with open arms sharing with me stories from their lives over the past years. Each one of them is HIV positive, and they shared with me that despite the aches and pains that come from aging (and for many raising their grandchildren) they are grateful to have the long life they have had. As for our current motorcycle repair program trainees at Hope for the Best, four participants were born HIV positive. With the help and support of life saving HIV medications and HIV education made possible by USAid, all are living a life today that would not have been possible. With the shutdown of USAid and without access to necessary medication, we could lose each and every one of them.
Uganda was one of USAid’s recipients for HIV/Aids medication and education. With their support, in the last decade new infections in Uganda plummeted reducing new annual rates from 83,000 to 38,000. Aids related deaths were reduced from 53,000 to 19,000, and babies born with HIV have been reduced from 30,0000 to 4,700. Today, roughly 1,500,00 Ugandans are living with a near normal lifespan with HIV, 72,000 of those are children between 0-14 years.
In 2024, the prevalence of HIV/Aids was 5.1% in Uganda. Without USAid’s support, this would not have been possible. Most Ugandan’s, living on less than $1.00/day would never have been able to cover the costs of treatment. It is because of our support to people all over the world, but in this particular mention, Uganda, we have saved millions of lives and families, and helped dramatically reduce the spread of HIV/Aids.
With the shutdown of USAid, so comes the loss of necessary antiretroviral medications to treat HIV. When someone stops taking antiretroviral medications for HIV, the possibility of death is significantly high; without treatment, the virus can rapidly progress, leading to a weakened immune system and potentially fatal opportunist infections, making death a very likely outcome over time. Without treatment, we will not only lose the faces above, but so, so many more.
USAid is not a corporation; it was an organization that was established by the United States to help and support the most vulnerable throughout the world whose governments cannot afford or do not care enough to support. It is part of America; a country where I thought cared about others, cared about saving lives, brought safety to lives, and makes a difference not only for those they help and support, but for all of us all over the world who benefit from the diseases that don’t find their way to America. The people who work for USAid are not just employees, but they are social workers, care takers, medical professionals – they are devoted to doing the work that so many of you call “god’s work”. I am not a religious person, but I believe that when we reach out and help those around the world who’s lives might not exists because of the support we give, I believe that is god’s work.
For more information, please see my website, mityanacommunitypartnerwship.org or message me directly at (415) 250-6472.
