Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> Announcer: Welcome to New York. It is my profound pleasure to welcome Dr. Susanna Grannis,
author of Hope Amidst Despair. I am very happy that she's here. Reason why she was here is
I was on the AIDS walk this spring and I fell into the step with a guy who was walking by
himself as well and we started talking about where we work. Of course I gave him the Google
spiel about what you can say and what you can't say. And he said, "Well, I work for
this charity and this charity does these things." And what his charity does is go and help aid
children who are orphaned by the AIDS pandemic in Africa grow up in strong communities. And
I was so moved by that I invited Dr. Grannis who was the founder of this group to come
and speak to Google today. Because I think it's very important as member of the Google
community to understand that one person can affect change. And we are in a unique position
here at Google to be considered leaders. And with that, Dr. Grannis.
[applause]
>> Dr. Grannis: Thank you very much. It's really an honor to be here. For someone of
my generation who spent much of her life in academic world and doing publishing and so
forth, I was thinking this morning about Google. When I was an untenured assistant professor
in the University of Illinois in Chicago I was under the gun to publish, I remember what
it was like when you went to get a book and it was gone and there was no record of who
had it or an article was ripped off a journal. Then later, after all these years later, sitting
in a small farm in Southern Vermont doing research and discovering that Google was going
to help me find all kinds of things all over the world. It has been a great pleasure. So
I didn't put Google in my acknowledgments but I want you to know that Google really
made a difference in the process of developing this book Hope Amidst Despair. I have some
photographs and some, a few quotes to give you from my book. And it really begins with
the despair part. But be patient, it comes to the hope part. This is a copy of the book.
And it came out and I've been writing on it for some years, but really it started quite
a number of years ago when my husband and I were Fulbright Professors at The University
of Namibia in 1996. And during that time, nobody talked about *** AIDS. But it was happening.
When we came back, I began to be concerned about the children who were, who had lost
their parents. What does it mean for children to be alone especially in societies where
you belong matters? What happens to the children? And so, in 2003, informally but then in 2004
more formally when we became a 501C, CHABHA was born and we supported projects in Libya,
South Africa, Rwanda and Burundi and ultimately focused on Rwanda and Burundi. This book includes
data from there are five countries to compare to show that *** AIDS pandemic differs by
country. During those years, as I said it was spreading and here is a photograph of
how it was spreading across Africa like wildfire. To just to give you some specifics on that
in South Africa where data is kept more accurately, recording the number of infected women in
prenatal clinics, in 1993, 4.3% of women were found to be infected. By 2005, that had grown
to 30.2%. Why was it growing in such a fast rate? Well, one of the reasons, I think terrible
time. Okay, good. Excuse me. One of the reasons is because of stigma, silence and secrecy.
People didn't talk. As soon as people realized that *** was spreading, the transmission occurred
and had to do with sex, they found it very, very difficult to talk about it. That silence
and the secrets have also led to stigma. And stigma happens to youngsters particularly.
And this is one of several short quotes that I have about stigma. One of our youngsters
whom I call Maria Teresa said, "My uncle sometimes is like embarrassing me, shaming me. You must
have AIDS. Your mother died of it. When he talks like that, I don't know what to do.
I feel it in my heart." Another, a boy of 13 said "I don't tell people I'm infected,
because they would stigmatize me. The leaders here know." And I will explain that shortly.
A girl South African girl in school said, "Even my friend told me she won't eat with
me again. One told my right to my face and I've got AIDS and I should stop coming to
school and I should just stay home. I would feel terrible. Cry deep down. I would sit
alone and cry alone." And that loneliness is a pattern of children who've been stigmatized.
[pause] When children when people are afraid and stigmatized,
they do not choose easily to go and get tested and to follow up with any counseling or medications
that are possible. And just this morning I read an editorial in the Kenyan paper of a
man talking about how reluctant he was to get tested until after actually a child was
born. It isn't something in the past. It continues. As a result of all of the pandemic and the
spread and so forth, there have been millions of orphans to AIDS. Nearly 15 million children
in Sub-Saharan Africa have lost one or both parents to AIDS. There are strides and there
are more and more people getting antiretrovirals. But still across Sub-Saharan Africa less than
half of the people who need to take the antiretrovirals get them which means the other half will ultimately
die and many of them are in their productive years of their 20s and 30s and are parents
leaving more orphans. So we look to a future of more, not fewer orphans unfortunately.
As children are orphaned, their aunts, their uncles, their neighbors take them in and poor
families who take in more children with more mouths to feed become more impoverished. And
these are pictures from Kigali in Rwanda. The one on the right indicates the poverty
is related and interacts with unclean water and poor sanitation. One way to measure the
impact of poverty on children is to look at the number of children who are underweight.
In 27% of children across Sub-Saharan Africa are underweight both affected by *** AIDS
and not. In Burundi, over half the children are stunted. It's one of the poorest countries
and it's where we have a project. I remember the first time I went there when I met a boy
who was about this tall. And I usually figure an amp can child is older than I would assume
when looking at an American child. This boy I assumed conservatively perhaps 14, he was
almost 17. So these children who are stunted, it affects their physical development. It
also affects their cognitive development. Gender is, as you probably know, a significant
factor in the *** AIDS pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa. Fully 60% of those living with ***
in Sub-Saharan Africa are girls and women. For young women and girls it's particularly
noticeable. In South Africa, while 4.5%of young men between the ages of 15 and 24 are
*** positive, among the equivalent group of young women the rate is 13.8. So if you were
a teacher of secondary students it could be that three of the girls in your class and
one of the boys is infected. How can that be? It's very complicated this gender differential.
Studies of childhood behavior show gender influence behaviors which is of course true
of all societies. In South Africa where these studies have been done, people have noted
that girls learn very early to be compliant and boys learn very early to be assertive.
And those behaviors continue. And it affects behaviors including *** behaviors as adults.
And it isn't just that males believe that women have no right to refuse sex, which is
the case of 47% of men in Lesotho, but 40% of women agree to that. As one South African
woman said in a group context with other women, "I can speak out here." She was in a program
for empowering women. "I can speak out here but who will defend me when I am alone with
my husband in the bedroom?" Implicit in that statement is the fear of violence. And indeed,
there is considerable violence. And I'll tell you an instance in the workshop. This is the
workshop that we did in 2003 sometime ago. At a workshop about *** transmission my husband
and I asked participants to answer whether or not each situation could result in transmission
from a set we presented. The audience was made up of teachers and secondary school students.
About equal numbers of both: men and women, girls and boys. Everyone agreed that one could
not be infected through hugging for example. The place came apart however over one situation.
The man and the women ended up shouting at each other about this one. A man goes away
to another country for two months on a special assignment. When he gets home, he has unprotected
sex with his wife. Could she become infected? The women said of course she could. The men,
no she couldn't become infected. These men and these women had very different understandings
of the meaning of the disease and their gendered role and talk across these misunderstandings
is critical. Women are affected in other ways as well. Many families, many orphans are being
brought up by their grandparents usually the grandmother. Over 50% of orphans in some countries
such as Kenya are brought up by grandparents. This is a grandmother and granddaughter in
our projects and they're doing very, very well. You can see this is a nice, neat house.
This child is well-cared for. That is not always the case. And it certainly isn't the
case when great poverty and great numbers of children. I heard of a woman in Uganda
who was trying to raise 13 grandchildren. And here's an observation we made that underlies
the feelings that these grandparents have. In a church service in a township outside
Johannesburg we watched a young boy about four years old and his very aged grandmother,
perhaps it was his great grandmother. She was urging him to walk across to the other
side of the huge room to join a group of other children and teacher. It would mean he would
have to walk in front of a huge crowd of people and he was scared. She kept urging him to
go but he was determined to stay in safety with her. Finally leaning heavily on a cane,
she took his hand and walked him across to the class. But we wondered how long that little
boy would have this elderly woman to care for him and make him feel safe. Some children
and I don't have reliable figures unfortunately live in child headed households. And this
is a family, the picture was taken maybe three years ago, perhaps four, three. Anyway the
older girl and her twin sister at 16 after their mom had died were given this house.
A little 3-room concrete block house for the two of them and their two brothers. They no
sooner got in the house than they got in touch with their two young cousins who had also
lost their mother to come and live with them. And that is the African way as families accept
more and more children and try to help them out. That little boy, the littlest one next
to the girl with her arm around him was born when his mother was sick with AIDS. And I
don't know with that particular child was infected at birth, but many children have
been infected at birth such as this baby. A great deal of effort has gone into reduce
mother-to-child transmission. And fewer and fewer children are born infected which is
a very good thing. In the U.S. and in northern Europe, it's less than 1% through the, by
giving antiretrovirals to the mother before and during birth and following up the baby
afterwards. And in some hard to reach places which is an ongoing issue in Sub-Saharan Africa
they have baby and mother packs that the mother can go home with after birth because they
are losing a lot of children who live so far away to keep coming back for testing after
birth. So a lot of effort and good effort has been put afoot into saving children's
lives. And indeed treatment has increased a great deal. Clinics have gone up. Antiretrovirals
are more and more available. But your chances if you need antivirals when you get sick depend
somewhat, depend largely on where you live. In some countries the claim is that 95% of
the people in Rwanda to be specific, the claim is that 95% of the people who need antiretrovirals
get them. In Burundi the other country where we have projects 27% of people who needed
them. And sadly there are reports that Burundi has lost some of its grants and people who
have been taking antiretrovirals are dying. I've seen similar reports of shortages in
newspapers since this came out just in recent weeks in Malawi and in Zambia and in Uganda,
but theirs may be a problem of distribution. In any case, it is an ongoing problem and
more to that in a moment. But this picture, let me tell you about it. This is, I interviewed
a number of children and I asked them to draw pictures and I have a few in the book and
here is Jean's picture. This is a time that she was proud of. And this begins to show
how our emphasis has been to build resilience in children living in this, very difficult
circumstances. Jean is one of nine children. Her mother is *** positive and was receiving
free drugs at the time I talked with Jean. Her picture is about an earlier time. In her
picture her mother sits with her back to us. She's just come from the hospital where she
learned of her *** status. And Jean said her mother cried for days. She asked help from
a neighbor, that elegantly dressed woman on the left who refused to help. And after several
days Jean went to her association and consulted one of her leaders who told her more about
the disease. So at the bottom you see the four little stick figures, that's Jean and
three siblings talking to the figure on the left, the leader. After learning about ***
AIDS from a meal, Jean came home and told her mother about how drugs would keep her
alive. And how all the children would help. Jean is very proud that she took on the responsibility
of finding out about *** and helping her mother. Her mother would live and she, Jean, would
help resolve family problems. But even in the face of this dire diagnosis, this child
is getting strength to move in there and help. Another child, this one herself infected.
[pause] Sorry. Mary Anthony was 13 when I interviewed her and a double orphan. She did
several episodes in her picture so I just pulled this one out. She said that since she
has been taking antiretrovirals she is no longer sick every day and she shows the virus
leaving her body in the figure above. The ***'s are the almost human like markings around
the sketched prone figure. You also see a friend who has come to visit and is dismayed
at her sickness. Although faulty, it portrays Mary's belief that the virus is leaving her.
And despite daunting challenging, she goes to school, she is a very good student and
she participates in a association she belongs to and looks to a positive future. But for
children like, oh, and I should also point out in addition to the inequities from country
to country in whether or not people get antiretrovirals. Children don't get antiretrovirals at the
same rate as adults. For a number of reasons like people aren't attending to older children
who are infected. The availability of antiretrovirals of course depends on money and in addition
to the shortages, some of the large donors have leveled off their funds for *** AIDS.
So we look to a difficult future. Here's the problem in a nutshell. On the left,
those x's represent 7,000 people newly infected every day. On the right are half those who
can get on antiretrovirals in the same period. And actually, that was before the shortages
began to appear. So the problem lies in prevention. I mean, the answer lies in prevention. Preventing
infection in the first place is the most important part to my mind of facing the *** AIDS epidemic.
There are, ultimately, one day we hope there will be a vaccine. And there's a great deal
of effort for years to develop a vaccine. And that will be the final answer. Unfortunately,
the *** virus is a very wily, people use that word, wily virus that changes over time. So,
to grasp it if you will with a vaccine is an extremely complicated measure. The development
of jells for women to apply which people had great hopes for then the research showed problematic
results and they pulled all the studies. But recently there's been some positive results
from some initial studies that need to be followed up. And of course there are condoms.
Condoms are both the technical use and the behavior change. I'm going, and to my mind,
even if there were vaccine the years it would take to get it up and running out to the places
in Sub-Saharan Africa where it's needed would be difficult to achieve. So behavior change
is essential. Here you see two young leaders of the associations. In Africa, it's very
common for people of like interest to form associations. And in fact, register their
associations. And have them to be official. It's far more official for example than a
club that we would have here. And we have, CHABHA has four associations of children infected
by *** AIDS mostly orphan. The biggest one and the one we were first associated with
is represented by these two leaders. It's called Amahoro which is peace. The young woman
is now the vice president and the young man president of the association. They are both
orphaned, double orphaned. They grew up in the association and then they were elected
by the children to be the president and vice president. CHABHA holds the associations which
CHABHA support holds workshops to teach youngsters important things like hygiene, nutrition,
how to grow a garden and so forth but always *** prevention. And I have two observations
from two different workshops on the teaching of *** prevention that I want to share with
you because they show you the effective and the ineffective. So I, the observations from
the young man whom I call Robert here that you see here. In fact it was the day that
that picture was taken. I should say that most of these pictures we have taken on our
trips. Some of the better ones like the cover of the book by a young photographer who's
interned twice with our project's named Mim Shafer and I should point that out. Anyway,
this is what I saw that day at Robert's workshop: 28 older youth and Robert was known and trusted
by all of them. He stood at the front with *** and condoms on the table before him.
He and the participants reviewed the facts of the disease they had learned in school
in an easy give and take with important information written on the board. Then he demonstrated
safe use of condoms and serious questions and discussions followed. For example, one
girl asked whether girls needed to agree to have sex. And all agree that girls as well
as boys needed to agree just as they needed to negotiate about using a ***. They learned
where to find free condoms and then Robert pointed out that there were ways to show affection
other than intercourse. It was the most amazing serious talk. In fact, in the high school
the other day, I began to show that and there were giggles and so forth. But as soon as
they heard that and realized that those youngsters at his workshop were learning about keeping
themselves safe, they really became quite serious. Here's the other extreme. A nurse
was asked to teach about *** prevention to a group of 50 youngsters. A man of about 45,
he stayed at the head of the classroom, used no artifacts nor presented any charted information.
He used lecture interspersed with a few questions mostly about the progression of the disease
which these youngsters having lived with a parent who died of it, I didn't put that in
the book, didn't need to know. I wish I had. He did ask how it's transmitted when one girl
said through *** intercourse, he agreed. But then he talked about how blood exchanged
when there's a cut. And in order to protect themselves, he advised them not to use sharp
tools, not to play with someone with bloody cuts, and not to touch someone who is bleeding.
The lesson neither recognized children's familiarity with AIDS nor provided information on how
to protect themselves. Despite being a nurse he didn't talk about sex. And that is, there
are instances of that across Africa where schools are told they must teach *** prevention
and they do, but it is very, very difficult for many to talk about sex. And, if you don't
know and trust the people in the room, you're not going to ask the questions. You're not
going to get into the details. Here these youngsters, they know how dangerous this disease
is, and they listen. It has been a struggle for Africa for programs in African Governments
to teach young people knowledge about the disease. Knowledge has to come first then
behavior change. But just at the level of knowledge for the most part fewer than half
young people in their teenage years understand about *** that have what is called "comprehensive
knowledge" of the disease. Which means naming two ways that it's transmitted, naming two
ways misconceptions about it and whether or not you can tell someone's infected by looking
at them. Pretty low-level understanding of the disease. In our projects we did a little
study and we found that 89%of them have at least that level of knowledge. But of course,
having the knowledge is necessary but not sufficient for preventing. So here thus this
is the question: where lies the hope? I explained about the associations. They are led for the
most part by these young leaders such as you saw. For children in a very bad situations,
sometimes and often a transformation occurs as it did with this girl pictured at one of
the gatherings. The association children gather every week for all kinds of activities. I
had seen this girl the year before. I'm going to talk about two different times. The first
time I met her she and her sister lived in a tiny, tiny room. They had very few objects.
If you go about counting the objects in your house, it's like my house beyond belief. They
had almost nothing. Two mats, an empty cooker, one change of clothing on a rope across the
ceiling. That's pretty much it. They were not in school and then because they didn't
have money for school. They were shunned, because their mom had died of AIDS. They sometimes
got food from neighbors, but the neighbors did not interact with them. They were totally
alone with nothing to occupy them. And then the association brought them in and they began
to participate in the multifaceted activities. They went to school. They got health cards.
They went to workshops. The leaders visited with them. And here is what they were like
a year later. About 300 young people were participating in circle games, singing and
running, chasing one another laughing they had gathered with others from an association
of children for a two-day workshop on life skills. They would soon be in a classroom
learning about family, community, and *** prevention. I saw several children I knew
including two sisters. They were transformed from the last time I seen them, wonderfully
transformed. There they were with arms around other girls, their friends. Then after a few
minutes they formed a line and sang a song about AIDS they had written. It was a plea
for cessation of stigma against children like themselves. More and more of the hundreds
of children gathered around to listen and as they sang the girls seemed confident and
strong. And when they finished everyone clapped with generous knowing appreciation. And that's
the transformation into strength and resiliency that we have seen. Hope lies in many things.
It certainly lies in going to school. And going to school is complicated. We still do
not have universal primary education though it's been called for since 1934. And even
in countries in several Sub-Saharan Africa that claim to have universal free primary
education, they don't. Because the children don't have the money for shoes, for pencils,
for uniforms such as these children here. And in many schools even though the government
doesn't approve of it, the schools charge contributions and chase the children away
if they don't have it. So getting to school and staying is a very big problem for these
extremely poor children. And indeed, in Rwanda and Burundi, I just recently saw these data,
about half of the children make it to fifth grade, half. They really are working on it.
And it's a matter of land and will and classrooms and teachers and everything you can imagine.
The story in secondary education is also is worse because it costs a lot more money. And
in recent years, the price has gone up and Rwanda. It's gone up from 200 to 400. That's
a lot of money for poor families. So in our project we do what we can. We send as many
children to secondary school as possible but for only a small percentage of youngsters
in a country in secondary school. The children in the pper middle class, the elite, going
to secondary school means that that country is not going to progress in terms of productivity
at the rate that's hoped for at least I would think so. One option that we have done and
many others have done is to develop vocational education. And you can see [pause] this boy
who's learning to be a mechanic. We have other youngsters who've learned to be cooks, to
work in beauty salon, to sew, to work in hotels and some of them complain about those being
rather low-level skills. But [pause] often they lead to much more. Here's an example
"I could not go to secondary." This is a boy who did not want to go in the program to learn
to cook, because that's what women do. But he was given the option that or no training.
So he took it and he learned to love it. "I could not go to secondary school because I
had to support my sisters by working odd jobs. Before I was living day-to-day though now
after hard work and completing my program I have a stable job as a cook. I have some
food now and can even open an account at a local bank. Since my sisters are not in school,
I'd like to be able to put them into school or vocational training. My mom is sick with
*** so I have no long-term plans beyond caring for my family." So that's a success story.
And he became the head cook in the restaurant where he did his internship. And now he's
the head cook in another restaurant and doing well. Not everyone has gotten wonderful jobs
like this, but a number have and we're pleased with that. You know, in many of our families
certainly and children have access to the kind of development that parents give us and
libraries and so forth. These children have none. So we really had, it was a wonderful
experience a couple of years ago when we were five of us coming at one time to Kigali because
we took visitors and each was made to carry heavy suitcase filled with English language
books and we started what we think is the first English language little library in Rwanda.
The school language in the first years children learn in Kenya, Rwanda and the school language
for years and years and years has been French. Various reasons historical and commercial
they announced that it would change to English across the board for the whole country. They
gave the teachers their 18 months, which is a very short time to learn a new language
and to be able to teach in it. But amazing and the children are just loving it. They
come and they read the books. And the boy in the middle of the picture on the left with
the dark book that's the dictionary. He's just sitting there reading English words trying
to absorb as much English as they can because they know that's a doorway to a better future.
Another way that hope comes is when families are supported. And we have been able to provide
goats for many families and many families are developing kitchen gardens to be, have
more sustainable. Health cards are provided for youngsters. Here are leaders filling out
health cards. There are home visits that are highly valued by the children. In the book
I of course talk about CHABHA. I also highlight a program in South Africa called Isibindi.
And there, the woman with the shirt of the yellow letters on it is the young leader,
one of many, from the community who's been trained whose assigned several families and
she visits the family in-depth several times a week teaching the children how to cook,
how to shop and encouraging them to be able to take care of themselves. The CHABHA model
which is represented over here with one of our leaders and children he's visiting. That
model supports group kinds of activities more than individual families. Hope lies in the
workshops. And ultimately hope comes through children's growing sense of they belong somewhere.
The loneliness that occurs when they are first orphaned can disappear as they learn that
belong with a group. They say that about their associations, "It's like my family." And the
leaders, "They're like my parents." In societies such as many in Sub-Saharan Africa, a person's
self-worth comes less from who they are as individuals and more from who they are in
connection with others. And you probably have heard the term Ubuntu. I'll read to you Nelson
Mandela's words about Ubuntu because I think it encapsulates what's happening as these
associations work with the children. "In Africa we have a concept known as a Ubuntu based
on the recognition that we are only people because of other people. We are all human
and the *** AIDS epidemic affects us all in the end. If we discard the people who are
dying from AIDS then we can no longer call ourselves people." I think Mandela would agree
that if we said we discard the children of people who are dying from AIDS then we can
no longer call ourselves people. There are two questions that I want to consider at this
point. One is whose responsibility is it to care for these children? Ultimately of course
the responsibility lies in, with the African governments and agencies and community organizations.
I believe our role is to help them. CHABHA is a very small organization helping grassroots
projects in Rwanda and Burundi. We don't tell them what they need. We go there and we ask
them, "What do you need?" And we negotiate that of course. But ultimately they are the
ones who are going to provide the children the basics they need, the psycho-social support
that they get, and the ability to grow up for the future and be resilient. More and
more African governments are urged to attend to children. And one report called Budgeting
for Children in Africa by a group scholars in Africa wrote this, "There are many reasons
why Africa should invest heavily in children first and foremost because it is the right
thing to do. Because it's the only way Africa can catch up with the rest of the world. Because
investment in children and youth contributes to democratic governance and social stability.
And finally because without children society will die. So it is about rights, about society,
about economics, about good governance and about our future place in the world." And
the children affected by *** AIDS are the ones who most need to be helped so that that
and be attended to by governments. Finally, sometimes people ask us and certainly I know
people wonder, "So what's the use of a small project like CHABHA when the need is so huge?"
CHABHA supports the projects that work with somewhat less than 3,000 people. It's a drop
in the budget of nearly 15 million children. So, I turn to a story. Some of you may have
heard it. Do you know the star fish story? It's kind of a metaphor. And I changed it.
It's written, a wonderful book, I think I have pages and pages of footnotes, but it's
the last one, Loren Eiseley, a book called The Star Thrower. Anyways there are lots of
stories but which is one I adapted. "A man walking along the beach one day came over
a dune and saw spread as far as the eye could see millions of starfish. Ceaselessly picking
starfish up one by one throwing them into the sea, the man asked her "Why are you throwing
them into the ocean you'll never be able to get them all?" And the young woman said "That's
true but the sun is high and the tide is running out and I can save this one" and she threw
another into the sea, "And this one," and she threw another one." So that is a romantic
story it has helped us at times when we wonder our direction. I have only a short skit of
a youngster's playing in one of their gatherings. But I think it's appropriate to stop here
and ask for questions or comments or thoughts that you may have. [pause] Yes.
>>Audience: [inaudible]
>>Dr. Grannis: Oh, oh, take the microphone.
>>Audience Male #1: Thank you. Well, you were saying about the impact of the small organizations
and I think that what I've learned about, I've learned a lot about the *** AIDS epidemic
and the various issues from CHABHA's work, following it that you guys are so close to
the ground that you understand children who do get primary education still have to bring
a *** to have paper to school so if they don't get chased from school. So we need to address
that problem. Not obviously in every individual school, but at the upper level, the government
and then you also need to get UNAIDS involved and you also need to get human rights involved
in the country. But you need the on the ground contact to really understand the impact it's
having on individuals because the large organizations can't really understand that, but not the
small.
>> Dr. Grannis: Absolutely. I saw a TV program soon after my last trip of many to Rwanda
and it was Partners in Health. Have you ever heard of them? Do wonderful work. Okay? I'm
not, but they announced that in Rwanda there's universal primary education. And I thought,
"How do they not know that that's, it's not universal." So even a project that is in the
country may not know about children. Jesse who's speaking was at that first workshop
that I told about when everyone agreed you couldn't get *** from hugging and so forth.
And he has since been doing a great deal of work including work I've written about in
here with *** prevention in high schools. And now takes groups of young people to Rwanda.
I don't know if we have time for you to. His program in high schools is, the youngsters
build their own dramas around real stories that they know. And so, it's like the prevention
workshop. It's very person to person. It isn't some far away story about a disease. It's
what they know and have experienced. Do you have a question?
>> Audience Male #2: How are these associations funded and are they cross-tribal or with a
single tribe?
>> Dr. Grannis: Oh my goodness. Let me deal with the first one. The large one, the workshop
they had formed from young adults who had lost their parents both in genocide in Rwanda
and from *** AIDS. And they were raising their own siblings. They were the oldest in their
families. And they got together to help one another and then more and more children came
and then, they formed the associations. They had no money. When I first met them in 2004,
they had a tiny little office, maybe three pieces of paper. They had some benches and
they had an old desk. And UNICEF had come and said thank you and left and not helped
and no one gave them any money. Because how could such a group write a proposal? I mean,
so we took a risk with them and we've been working with them ever since. Another project,
the one in [inaudible] in Nymata outside of Kigali. I have a quote in here somewhere but
I won't look for it because it'll take too long. But the leader said, "We have a association.
We work with the children. We went to the district office and asked them for money and
they didn't give us any. But then we heard about Eric and CHABHA. So they called Eric
who was our country director and they called Eric up and Eric went out there. Actually
let me tell you about that story in funding. We're talking about a very little money that
goes a long, long way. Eric went with the equivalent of $2,000 in his pocket. And he
had asked the leaders to do certain things that they needed to do to organize. He went
out and they hadn't done it. And you know Eric. He just pulled up the money and put
its back in his pocket and said sorry you're not getting the money. This was to get more
children in school to do more health work. You're not going to get it until you do these
things. They watched him go away in his funny little old car. Then they came back to town
within a week they had done it. They got the money. They were a wonderful project too.
They really are. They do wonderful things with children. Yeah. The other question is
a very big question in Rwanda and Burundi both where both Hutu and Tutsi groups have
they experienced genocide. Rwanda in a very short amount of time and Burundi over many
years. Nobody in, nobody mentions a person's Tribal or ethnic identity. It's really against
the law I would say in Rwanda. In Burundi I don't know. I don't hear about it. I think
that as we have found out and I didn't know this for years, because it's not something
you talk about that most of the children in the projects are Hutu. Well, most of the population
is Hutu, so that makes sense. And some of the leaders are Tutsi. Not all, by any means.
Isn't that correct would you say? David Loewenuguth is the Executive Director of CHABHA. He spent
nearly a year as a volunteer there and before that. So he really knows.
>> David: Well, thank you Dr. Susanna. It was a really wonderful presentation. The and
Jesse could probably answer to this question a little bit more. The government of Rwanda
is focused on really transitioning to "We are one. We are Rwanda." and leaving behind
the tribal history but that they all recognize is going to take generations to accomplish.
>>Dr. Grannis: It's very complicated about its Rwanda's moving forward incredible pace
and there are people saying the human rights problem is something to be concerned about.
How does one that is not part of it know? I can't claim to, certainly. So looks like
we're finished.
>> Female Audience # 1: Yes [inaudible].
>> Dr. Grannis: Well, this is five minutes and I don't know if you have five minutes.
It's kind of a silly skit of youngsters and a gathering with paint on their faces nothing
to do with the skit. I'll just tell you what it is because you all have to go back to work,
right? The girl walking in in the jeans is pretending to be the teacher and the children
on the bench are her students. And I'll just show you. They do a little musical number
and they get her to do the music. And then the principal comes. And she is very mad then
she does the music. [video plays] [children talking in video]
You hear their English? She's telling them how to behave when she leaves the room, okay?
Let me move it ahead. Okay.
This is, boy, I went backwards.
Okay. She's starts. Here's the principal.
[children talking in video]
Here's the district superintendent.
[children talking in video]
Well, that's it. The minister of education comes and he's got, it's Abdul and he's got a suit on. And he
has put a pillow in his stomach and he's standing there. And then ultimately he dances too and
the place comes apart. And one of the leaders turned to me and said she didn't approve of
that at all. I thought you know when young people run an association, they know that
children should be having fun. And the children come to the gatherings have fun with the leaders.
Anyway, thank you very much. I'm glad to have been here.
[Applause]
[Inaudible]
>> Announcer: Let me turn this off here. One second. Here, great. Beautiful. Let me turn
the monitor off.