| Treatment Action Campaign Solidarity Efforts The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), launched in South Africa in December 1998 advocates for access to AIDS treatment for all South Africans who need them, by raising public awareness and understanding about issues surrounding the availability, affordability and use of HIV/AIDS treatments. For more than four years, TAC appealed to and negotiated with the South African government, supported the government in court against multinational drug companies and successfully litigated against the government to ensure a national mother-to-child HIV prevention program. In addition to mobilizing, training and empowering people living with HIV/AIDS, TAC marched, held interfaith services, and built a broad coalition of labor, business, religious, activist and NGO organizations. Because of government promises to implement a national AIDS programs, TAC agreed with South Africa's Deputy President Jacob Zuma to hold off on a civil disobedience campaign until the end of February, 2003. In March, given the urgency of the AIDS crisis and continued government inaction, TAC decided it could wait no longer launched a national civil disobedience campaign for universal access to anti-retroviral treatment for all South Africans living with HIV/AIDS and called on organizations and individuals the world over to stand with them in solidarity. ANSA TAC Solidarity Vigil On Monday, April 28, 2003, Artists for a New South Africa and the Black AIDS Institute held a vigil in support of South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the five million South Africans living with HIV/AIDS. The vigil took place in front of the South African Consulate-Los Angeles, where organizers and volunteers laid out 600 pairs of shoes to represent the 600 people who die each day of HIV/AIDS related illnesses in South Africa because of lack of access to healthcare and AIDS treatment. Vigil participants included: Reverend James Lawson, one of the primary architects of the non-violent civil disobedience of the American civil rights movement; actor and ANSA board member Alexandra Paul; Lynne Chamberlain, board member of the Black AIDS Institute; Professor Allan Roberts, Director of the University of California's Department of African Studies, Minority AIDS Project representatives and noted Zimbabwean actor Michael Chinyamurindi. The vigil-which was part of an international week of solidarity efforts action in cities and countries across the globe, including Washington, D.C., New York, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Japan, and Italy- garnered local, national and international media coverage. In keeping with ANSA's philosophy of helping locally while advocating globally, after the vigil, the 600 pairs of shoes, which had been donated by ANSA supporters and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Out of the Closet thrift stores, were given to the Prototypes Women's Resource Center and to Minority AIDS Project, for people living with HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles who are in need.    Photographer: Jonas Bunte |