I am the President of Keep A Child Alive. But I can fight harder than Muhammad Ali. I have had a great trainer called INDIFFERENCE. And a great motivational coach called COMPASSION.
I am so amazed at how hard I have to fight. Day after day, hour after hour. I fight for poor Africans who have been blighted with the HIV virus. It's something that seems so right but is inconsequential to most of the world, even though the crisis should demand our urgent attention. One thing is for sure: AIDS certainly isn't going away anytime soon and has already decimated sub-saharan Africa, which contains almost 70% of the 33 million HIV-infected people in the world.
Breaking through the walls of indifference is extremely hard and I often wonder why am I doing this to myself. As a producer I could perhaps be earning a fortune making the films/documentaries that I feel are important. Indeed even now I am the co-producer (on the side) of an upcoming Focus Features film on the great and legendary Fela Kuti to be directed by artist/director Steve McQueen who made the masterpiece The Hunger. This is a film that has taken years to make happen. I began the process in 2000 but, just like the last film I developed, Larry Clark's Kids, AIDS is a part of the message. Fela died of AIDS in 1997.
I have always been a great PR. If I put my mind to something I can coax all the right players that it is the thing to be involved with, except when it comes to a little virus called AIDS which needs a herculean effort to get people to take ACTION, rather than simply sympathizing. Frankly, if I wrote a book on my outrageous life it would be a shocker and probably sell respectably too. But I do this work because it is without a doubt the most fulfilling way to live imaginable, knowing at the end of every day that you have worked your ass off, not for the benefit of a superstar's mansion, but for the benefit of African and Indian families who are desperately trying to survive.
Even in spite of a good dose of anti-depressants, I still cry for Africa and India and the carnage that envelopes it. Most African countries have been colonized, raped, and left in poverty and now here comes the ultimate disaster, AIDS. Because most people with the virus cannot afford even the bus fare to receive medical help or access to vaccinations for the diseases that will eventually wipe their families out, they die. The poor live on less than a dollar a day, lucky if they eat one meager meal during that 24 hours. We live in a country where our First Lady has to make childhood obesity her mission. What's wrong with this picture?
As the President of Keep A Child Alive, there is always a reason to put on my boxing gloves. Recently at the World Cup ceremony in South Africa I was happy to see my friend Angelique Kidjo, who as usual was singing her heart out for the people. She told me that she loves me no matter how many people diss me for "being too pushy." How pushy should I be when I am filled with images of children who have suffered the indignity and pain of rape because an ignorant man and his ignorant shaman believe that virgins can cure AIDS? As I held that eight-month-old child, Angel, who had been raped so brutally by her own father (who died of AIDS the next day) should I remember my manners? Angel had no life in her eyes as I cuddled her. Her soul had died, as she did days later from the injuries caused by her own father. How do I tell the patients we support at Keep A Child Alive care centers that I need to follow the rules, not cause a fuss, because Americans don't like us being too pushy for help to save their precious lives? When a woman comes to me in our clinics and says "Thank you, for without this clinic I would be dead," then I am glad I tore the roof down for her. I am glad I pissed everyone off by asking again and again for help until I found the right minded people who accepted the challenge.
The co-founder of Keep A Child Alive, Alicia Keys, is also a prize fighter. She is out there with her pink boxing gloves -- she is nicer than me -- fighting and singing, making it all easier for people to understand what's at stake for half of the African continent, using the voice and the fame she has to do good. That voice that can't say anything bad about anyone is the voice that always speaks positively, the voice that means it when she says, "Leigh, I cant sleep until we build that village."
She is referring to the village we are focused on building in Soweto, South Africa, out of used shipping containers, for children who are living alone without parents. One hundred and forty of them will be housed here out of the 3.7 million orphaned by AIDS in South Africa alone. A drop in the bucket, you might say, but it's just the beginning. This will be our model to create more, using these ugly objects which have become the blight of the landscape, unused and stacked up all over Africa and the world, to an eco-friendly end result. Under the care of organizations who are charged with the support of children living in child-headed households, hundreds and, hopefully, thousands of kids will grow up loved and supported, educated and protected from rape, hunger, trafficking, hatred, desperation and God only knows what else.
South Africa, with the most number of AIDS orphans in the world, still makes it impossibly hard to adopt from there by Americans. The stupidest part is that one is not allowed to have a relationship with the child you might want to adopt. So for those of us who fall in love with South African children (as I have) you are out of luck. Back in the day, the ideology of not knowing the child you want to adopt may have made some sense, but not today. For the humanitarians among us who visit South Africa often, it's inevitable that one little soul will fall in love with you and you will want only the best for him or her and feel the desire to give him a lovely life among your family (who have probably also fallen in love with him or her too).
With new UNICEF estimates of 3.7 million orphans living in South Africa alone, there is no choice but to open the door to international adoptions. It is also much more cost effective for governments. It costs 267 times more to keep a child in government-sponsored care than it costs to have them adopted. Gosh, I guess I will have to get Angelina and Madonna on the case to help me with this issue.I am sure they love their adopted children as their own, and every child, no matter how wonderful the orphanage, is better off as part of a family.
I recently returned from South Africa where Alicia performed at the opening concert for the World Cup. As a member of the audience, I can honestly say that a roar went up in that stadium when she appeared on stage that was the loudest roar I have ever heard. Suddenly a woman appeared in front of me in floods of tears telling me how important Alicia was to the people of South Africa because of her commitment to them. She fell on her knees and the tears streamed down her cheeks. She was broken but she felt she had someone to look up to who was on her side. And for this I was so proud and broke down too because I knew she was right, so right.
Our work with Keep A Child Alive just makes Alicia and I exhilarated to be in the fight with all the possibilities that her power can bring. For all the things that the American marketing machine has convinced us we need, what we really need is compassion for others. As the great 2nd Century BC Buddhist scholar Shantideva wrote:
"Whatever joy there is in this world
All comes from desiring others to be happy,
And whatever suffering there is in this world,
All comes from desiring myself to be happy."
And its really true. I don't care any more about the things I used to. I have given up the house I thought I needed, the movies I was desperate to make, the money I thought I needed to be somebody. Obviously Bill Gates and other billionaires have come to the same decision. Reading about the Giving Pledge launched recently one gets the real feeling that people are learning the value of money, i.e. it messes you up if not used for the good. People change around you, things get weird. Let's see how many celebrities agree to get involved with the Giving Pledge. I suspect it will be a big fat zero. In their narcissistic nightmare they really believe that giving their image is enough. Recently someone asked me what I would ask for if I could have anything. I couldn't think of an answer. That is how little material things factor into my decisions these days. Could you build me a village for orphans? That would be mega.
As a practicing Buddhist, I do get angry especially about the injustice of watching Wall St. be bailed out (ensuring huge bonuses to the top dogs) while half of the world lives in extreme poverty. Who cares, we seem to collectively say. Our silence is deafening.
As an organization run primarily through the pop culture machine, I must have made hundreds of thousands of calls, written God knows how many e-mails and taken thousands of meetings -- all with the same message: Please help Africa deflect the scourge of AIDS. Even as we ask people to help us save lives, they just sit there and you can almost see the wheels turning, "What's in it for me?" Most of the time they do nothing or lead us up the garden path and then let us down.
Here are are some responses that are there undercover in many dialogues we have as a charity...
How do we use dying people as a marketing tool for our goods?
Now obviously people don't actually say this but it's what most offers of corporate help boil down to. Our collective blood boils when I think of all the corporations who have decided that charity sells product. But for the poor woman living in a hut, shivering and shaking, aching all over, mouth filled with thrush and the constant fear of orphaning her children, can you imagine knowing that Americans are using her tragedy to sell their products?
Then there is the hype: "This T-shirt can save a life," or the PSA recently produced by RED that compares what 40 cents can buy compared to two pills that can save a life for the same amount. They use funny cute glamorous celebrities doing funny cute things as if the public is that stupid. Now everyone who knows me knows I adore Bono and admire him for his tenacity and commitment to Africa but this PSA is simply beyond the pale. It seems ignorant of the facts and has boiled a complicated issue down to a Madison Avenue soundbite that is frustrating the hell out of NGO's like KCA.
Firstly, it does not cost 40 cents to save a life with HIV. That is simply the cost of those two pills but there is a great deal more to saving lives than popping two pills every day. If only it were that easy! People would be lining up at the drugstore to drop those pills and be done with AIDS. You might say they cannot be blamed for being reductive in order to get people's attention but this is not like selling albums or iTunes, it's a matter of life and death.
We at Keep A Child Alive know so well through experience as implementers of AIDS care that these drugs are just a fraction of the need an HIV+ patient has in order to survive. Actually those drugs need a slew of surrounding care to be successful including psycho social counseling, a great medical team, lab tests, adherence counseling and follow up, treatment for opportunistic infections, home based care, respite facilities, and something as bland as transport is a huge part of the whole picture. This all costs a lot more than 40 cents a day, believe me. In many ways ARVs are now the least complicated of it all (except when they run out). We know this only too well because we are constantly working to fundraise to support our clinic care facilities in Uganda, South Africa and Rwanda. And the most important part of the whole equation? FOOD. FOOD. FOOD.
Can you pimp Alicia out for cheap?
Another unutterable statement that we read between the lines. Major stars charge a lot of money for sponsorship deals. If they agree to support a charity sponsored by a corporation then the corporation gets major association with superstars for free! Most times the charity makes very little at the end of it all but the corporation gets mega juice and probably sells more of its stuff. The people who suffer still suffer. So here we are, back to using human tragedy to market product.
What red carpet am I on?
Yes, there are red carpets that stretch all around the world where the celebrities on them wearing the clothes supplied by the designers with the step-and-repeat behind them festooned with logos, have read the talking points before hand and try to remember what they are passionate about when the cameras roll. In the meantime their vacant expressions on the red carpet tell you everything. I am here for a PR op. Witness the night a very tanned Italian designer stood on our carpet and asked his assistant, "What charity event is this?" Or the model who said "No" to our every request unless it helped her look good but was always quick to ask for a $100,000 table at our Annual Fundraiser, The Black Ball. Or the TV star who wanted to use our charity in order to reinvent her image because in the words of Kanye West, "I ain't saying she's a gold digger but she ain't messing with no broke...", well you know the rest.
In the world of politics the G8 came to a day of reckoning last month when the results of their financial commitments from the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005 were tallied. Frankly its shocking that so many of the leaders of the free world could not meet their own country projections of aid to the poor to achieve the Millenium Development Goals. Their failures (except for the US and UK who met their commitments) will result in the millions who need AIDS treatment not being able to get it and as my hero Stephen Lewis, Dir of AIDS Free World and the de facto leader of our movement says, "Again the spectre of death will stalk the land." (I swear this man is Shakespeare reborn). He is only too right. 9 million more people need ARV's and if they don't get them millions more children will be orphaned adding to the 12 million already in Africa.
We should never cut aid to the impoverished world. Eliminating extreme poverty, malaria, hunger and AIDS is critical because they are crucifying the poor who deserve an equal start at achieving their dreams. And President Obama, can you stop intellectualizing and make some major decisions about stuff like how to stop half the mothers in the world from crying when they cant provide a piece of bread to their children. Just a piece of bread. If you want to change the world change the world for the poor. Then all will fall into place and our global political karma will be right.
In other words there is a lot of pain involved in the fight but we are still in the ring and will always be. Alicia and the team at KCA continue to fight hard for the beautiful people of Africa and India who with the political will of our leaders and the generosity of the American people could thrive and the truth that life everywhere is precious, can prevail.
And don't bother e mailing me with pithy comments about The Black Ball and its red carpet and the corporations who support us etc because we know when we accept their help that these are the ones who really care. We make sure of it. You see, corporations are made up of PEOPLE and its people who decide -- to do good or not to.
See you at the Black Ball -- sponsored by Cover Girl. Sept 30 at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Humanitarians performing? Jay-Z, Sade, Alicia Keys, and Janelle Monae. With Deepak Chopra telling us how our collective molecules get really excited about giving.
And yes, I am ready to box the hell out of complacency again this week.