It's easy to tell someone who has been cleaning dishes and scrabbing the elderly in "the west". Their inferiority complex when it comes to the "mzungu" is just amazing.

"You should know people!!!"



I'm not speaking literally @McDoba.

@ shintotoi, Well put!

I think we need to do more than just work the speakers of our music players while listening to emancipation music from the Caribbean.

We need to put the beneficial ideals of the singers into practice. If we do that we will have use for the more useful stats our own NASCOP provides to chart our future.

NASCOP states that MARPs (Most At Risk Populations) account for one third of new HIV infections in Kenya which is estimated to be about 100,000 per year. (KAIS 2008).

So Kenya alone has approximately 300,000 new HIV infections per year????

I understand that is bad depressing news and worrying about other issues such as who created HIV, chlamydia in Scandinavia, etc is more tolerable.

If I was an escapist, I would worry about those too but if I do that I wont be emancipated.

AGENDA BEHIND THE EPIDEMIC
In the West HIV estimates have declined.

But in Africa the "estimated" HIV positive total has risen to 20 million - seemingly in direct proportion with the increasing international donor activity in the HIV/AIDS sector with the entire action shifting from the West to Africa. Even as the reported AIDS cases in Africa number only 129,000 (half the US figure), many damaging claims about AIDS continue to be made by a multitude of western research projects and by government and non-government organizations.

Amongst the most publicized of these were stories relating to whole villages identified as "dying from AIDS" in Kagera district of northern Tanzania and to hordes of "AIDS orphans". Less publicized were the facts that two years later in 'most affected' villages only 5 to 13% of the people tested HIV positive or that the "orphans" were children left with grandparents in polygamous cultures and had nothing to do with AIDS!! But the damage has already been done - and is only now being understood.

The 'New African' magazine, which circulates across the continent, says "alarmist and exaggerated" forecasts made by western experts, supported by the WHO, have done immeasurable harm to African confidence and the way Africans are seen abroad and has called for an international inquiry to establish the truth about AIDS

Africa has everybody - from the World Bank, the churches, the Red Cross, the UNDP, African Medical Research FoundationÖ About 17 organizations in Kagera alone are doing something for AIDS. The numerous AIDS agencies that have flourished in much of Central Africa have also brought "development", turning small neglected towns into towns full of Land Rovers and Toyotas.

The day the epidemic goes away, a lot of "development" is going to go away! Many who have seen ground realities say it is easy to 'do good' in Africa as it is so disorganized that the one who is doing good is also the one reporting the good he is doing!

So Africa is a good market and experimental ground for many organizations, a perfect field for fake charity which benefits the benefactors.

Meanwhile, the immense international funds available for HIV and AIDS work remain an incentive for exaggerated statistics. Indeed, many of the horror stories in Africa came into existence due to the funds they brought.

Political factors have also played a part in the scramble for funds. For instance, when Kenya lost $300 m desperately needed foreign currency in 1991, due to an attempt by industrialized world to force political and economic reforms, the Health Minister made a crisis announcement showing AIDS figures spiraling out of control and horror stories of AIDS deaths. This was internationally recognized as an attempt to win back donor sympathy and funds. Many African countries are now facing mounting debts. There are cases where merely the annual interest payment on borrowings for HIV prevention add up to more than twice the total annual health budget of the country!

http://www.whatisaids.com/jackbooklet.htm