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In the Media |
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The following is
excerpted from "Economic
Interventions for HIV," a speech
that
Mary Fisher gave June 19, 2007,
to the 2007 HIV/AIDS
Implementers' Meeting, Kigali,
Rwanda. |
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| When you arrived
at this conference
of HIV/AIDS
implementers, you
received a special
gift: bracelets made
by Rwandan and
Zambian women
artisans. When I
designed these
bracelets, my
intention was to
create fine jewelry.
But my deeper
motivation was to
create employment.
The reason is clear:
Women who share
poverty and AIDS can
be empowered only by
employment. And
without empowerment,
there is no reason
to live. |
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The bracelet project was done with my friend
Willa Shalit and her partner in Rwanda, Dean
Ericson, founders of
Fair Winds Trading. Willa had been
deeply moved by women who'd survived the
terror and torture of genocide, and needed
now to make a choice: They could go mad with
grief, and die, or they could embrace across
the violent divide, and live. They chose
life. And they celebrated that choice
through art by weaving, together, their
extraordinary "peace baskets." In service to
the women of Rwanda, Willa brought their
stories and their baskets to America, and
used basket sales to generate employment and
income for African suppliers and artists.
Then Willa saw some of my jewelry. And I saw
some of her women at work. From that
miraculous day grew the bracelet project
employing women in both Rwanda and Zambia.
When a generous donor purchased two thousand
bracelets as gifts for this conference, we
were able to keep women in Rwanda and Zambia
earning a living wage a bit longer.
I have never been involved in anything that
has so raised my hopes and my fears, given
me such pride and such panic. This is not a
story of simple economics or guaranteed
success and the story is far from over.
But let me tell you the story as a woman who
represents
UNAIDS, and as an artist, and as
a woman with AIDS.
I'm honored to be a Special Representative
and goodwill ambassador of UNAIDS. The
leadership offered by (UNAIDS Executive
Director) Dr. Peter Piot, and the joy I have
with my sisters in the Global Coalition on
Women & AIDS these are privileges. UNAIDS'
support for our training of women in Rwanda
and Zambia was critical to our beginnings.
The character and wisdom of Elizabeth Mataka
(UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.);
the power of PEPFAR (the President's
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief); the
friendship of (U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator)
Ambassador Mark Dybul and Mark's
passionate devotion to this cause all
inspire me. Having recognized all of these
gifts, the struggle remains great.
We know the truth of Nelson Mandela's great
proclamation that poverty and inequality
rank with "slavery and apartheid as social
evils." And AIDS within poverty is the AIDS
we know best.
"Millions of people," he reminded us,
"remain imprisoned, enslaved...trapped in
the prison of poverty.... Overcoming poverty
is not a gesture of charity, it is an act of
justice," and the first step toward economic
freedom, says Mandela, is "ensuring trade
justice." I agree. The key to freedom is
trade, not aid.
I was in the U.S. earlier this year when an
email arrived from Radegonde Ndejuru. She
leads PACFA, Rwandan First Lady Jeannette
Kagame's model program for women and
families living with AIDS. Women from PACFA
were recruited and trained to create
bracelets in Rwanda. The previous week,
Radegonde wrote, the women had sent her to
thank the World Food Program for their
previous support, and tell them their food
wouldn't be needed any longer. They were
earning income now and the World Food
Program should to quote them "give their
food to a more needy group." The World Food
Program officer said that, to the best of
her knowledge, this had never happened
before, any where. But history can be
rewritten, aid recipients can become aid
providers, when employment is married to
fair trade. We've seen it.
So what do I fear? I fear that we may put
women to work sporadically but not
consistently. I worry that we'll not keep
them working and proud, feeding their
families and clothing their children,
motivated to hope and to live. The record of
income-generating projects of this type is
spotty, at best, and we have no right to
raise hopes only to dash them. Single
economic interventions are not enough;
what's needed is sustainable interventions
businesses that can succeed year after year
after year.
As the West colonized Africa and other great
cultures, the West depreciated the great art
of those we colonized. Where economic
interventions are based on indigenous art,
we must overcome the stereotype that African
products are inferior, because they are not.
We need products of great quality, and we
can have them, to support prices high enough
to give women a livable wage. First, we need
to defeat the myth of "cheap crafts."
To achieve Mandela's vision of freedom
through trade justice, we'll need to
challenge old models of government aid,
philanthropic grants and missionary zeal.
These models all assume that donors infuse
indigenous cultures with money and know-how
and, after a few years, indigenous
businesses will grow strong and independent.
Then folks from donor agencies or nations
can go home. Some times this model works.
But not often.
The secret to sustainability to ending my
fears and keeping my women working is a
different model, a sustainable model, a
Partnership Model. This model assumes that
Africa and donor nations are equally
important to one another, that we share a
single globe and are, like it or not,
co-dependent. Partnership has no room for
paternalism.
This model sees communities of poverty also
as communities of potential. The Western
partner first assures sale of a product and
only then comes to Africa to produce it. In
short, we bring the market to Africa rather
than bringing Africa to the market. There is
no other way to assure that goods produced
will be goods sold and for a fair price.
And sustainability demands no timeline for
separation, no "going home." Ten years from
now, or 20 if I am still alive, I will
still be designing jewelry, still seeing it
produced by my business-partner-sisters. A
sustainable model is built on continued
relationships, not the illusion of
independence.
When global corporations are willing to
emulate this model, they too will become
partners in communities where poverty
enslaves but employment liberates; they too
will accept the challenge of employing a
fair share of people with AIDS; they too
will see themselves neither as rescuers nor
as raiders but as partners, in for the
long haul, creators of justice and
sustainability.
I've seen the power of economic
intervention, and the urgency of building a
sustainable model. But I've seen something
else as well because I, too, am a woman with
AIDS.
I would not be here today were it not for
Dr. Agnes Binagwaho. We'll hear from her
shortly. Dr. Agnes leads the Rwandan
National AIDS Control Commission, serves
dozens of global boards and initiatives, and
is driven not by professional ambition but
by a passion for justice. When I, a woman
with AIDS, see Dr. Agnes, I'm moved both to
tears and to hope.
And I see you before me heroes in the
global war on AIDS. You lift the weary and
carry the orphans, rescue the dying and
protect those not yet infected. You've shown
bravery in the face of criticism, courage in
the face of disappointment, compassion in
the face of brutal oppression. It is you we
celebrate with the gift of a bracelet.
I am a woman with AIDS. After years
preparing to die, you've kept me alive with
miracle drugs. But life without hope,
without honor, is not life. It is slavery.
My sisters are weary of charity; we want
work. We do not want medications that keep
us breathing but enslaved. We want the
dignity that comes with proving we matter,
the power than accompanies a just wage.
Drugs give us the capacity to live, but
employment gives us a reason. We are weary
of being victims, objects, numbers and even
patients. We want to graduate from slavery
to partnership, and we want it now.
Until we have created sustainable businesses
in every community touched by AIDS, I will
wear the bracelet in tribute to you. You are
the ones who can redeem our lives from
slavery. And I will wear it with this prayer
for you, and for the marvelous women who
created it: "Grace to you all, and peace."
© 2007, The Mary Fisher
Clinical AIDS Research and Education (CARE)
Fund at the University of Alabama at
Birmingham |
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In the Media |
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