Africare and the HIV/AIDS Strategy for Africa

Currently, HIV/AIDS is decimating African societies, especially in Southern Africa, tearing apart the extended family system, eliminating skilled workers and creating millions of orphans. In 2003, AIDS killed an estimated 2.3 million Africans, while more than 26 million Africans are now living with HIV/AIDS. Africare has helped the people and leaders of Africa to combat HIV since 1987, shortly after the epidemic began. It is implementing HIV/AIDS programs in 18 countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, and Namibia. Programs include HIV prevention, voluntary counseling and testing, care for people living with HIV/AIDS, and assistance to orphans and affected families. In addition, HIV/AIDS is a component of other programs focusing on agriculture, child survival, and emergency relief in all 26 countries where Africare is active. OVERVIEW OF AFRICARE In 1970, Africare was founded to improve the quality of life for the people of Africa. Over the course of its 33-year history, Africare has become a leader among private charitable U.S. organizations assisting Africa. It is the oldest and largest African American organization in the field. Africa is Africare's specialty. When Africare was founded, West Africa was in the midst of one of the most severe droughts in its history. Animals were dying. Crops could not grow. Villagers were fleeing their homes in search of water. Millions of human lives hung in the balance. Among those providing help--medical aid to the Maina-Soroa Hospital in Diffa, Niger--were 17 American volunteers, led by William O. Kirker, M.D., and Barbara Jean A. Kirker, who named their group "Africare. " Eventually, the organization needed more support. Diori Hamani, then president of the Republic of Niger, appealed to the United States on the effort's behalf. He went on to pose a broader question: Why don't black Americans, whose ancestors came from the continent, respond to the needs in Africa? President Hamani addressed his appeal to C. Payne Lucas, the director of the Peace Corps Office of Returned Volunteers in Washington, as well as to several African Americans working in Africa. Lucas had served previously in Niger and knew the president well. Dialogue between C. Payne Lucas and President Hamani ensued. What emerged was a concept for a new breed of assistance organization: progressive like America, culturally respectful like the Peace Corps, and uniquely multiracial in origin as well as Africa-wide in scope. In 1970, Africare was incorporated in Hawaii, with William Kirker as its founder and first president. In 1971, Africare was permanently reincorporated in Washington, D.C. Lucas became the executive director (and later the president), and Kirker joined the board. Other incorporators were the Nigerian diplomat Oumarou G. Youssoufou and Joseph C. Kennedy, then on the staff of the Peace Corps. With a $39,550 budget, a U.S. headquarters in the basement of Lucas's home, and one project in Niger hardly signaled an impressive start. But Africare's founders loved Africa. They envisioned what Africare could become. They also had the tremendous drive needed to pursue their dreams for their new organization and what it could do for the continent. To date, Africare has delivered more than $400 million in assistance--representing more than 2,000 projects and millions of beneficiaries--to 35 countries throughout Africa. Africare's 150-plus programs reach families and communities in 26 nations in every region of Africa. 1. Africare has been a pioneer in village-based rural development in Africa. In the area of health, special achievements have been in child survival, river-blindness control, malaria prevention, national-level pharmaceutical management, and HIV/AIDS response at the grass-roots level. Africare has constructed thousands of wells and irrigation systems, bringing safe, reliable water supplies to some of the most isolated communities in desert areas of Africa. …