Dear Friends, We recently returned from South Africa, where we witnessed the country’s significant progress as well as the enormous challenges it faces. Together we traveled through cities, townships, and rural villages to meet with Artists for a New South Africa’s extraordinary African advisors and grassroots partners. We stood on the front lines of South Africa’s AIDS epidemic, where 950 people die each day and more children have been orphaned by the disease than in any other country. No one can return from an experience like that unchanged. Despite the magnitude of the crisis, we each came away with our hope firmly intact and our resolve strengthened. We witnessed ANSA—and our own dollars—at work, empowering action, creating solutions, and changing lives. We visited outstanding programs and met remarkable African people carrying out effective efforts: doctors saving lives; social workers assisting orphaned children; and AIDS activists eradicating stigma and organizing sweeping social change. Our journey was also a wake-up call about the many needs still unmet. There is so much more that must be done and we need your help. Not far from the center of Cape Town—one of the world’s most beautiful and cosmopolitan cities—lies the township of Khayelitsha, where hundreds of thousands of Xhosa people live in small shacks constructed from scraps of corrugated iron, wood, and plastic. Given its pervasive poverty, malnutrition, and disease, it would be reasonable to give in to despair. Yet the community possesses an indomitable spirit, and remarkable organizations are turning these problems around. Archbishop Tutu introduced us to Philani, an exceptional nonprofit ANSA now supports, which is dramatically improving the lives of children and mothers through quality preschool, nutrition, healthcare, skills training, and economic self-help programs. Little children, once malnourished, are now bright-eyes and eager to learn. They sang and danced with us, and were so full of life, they stole our hearts. Their mothers, once unemployed, now weave and sell beautiful tapestries. Your donations support effective programs, like Philani. With additional funding, we could change the lives of many more children at risk. We can attest that your contributions to ANSA get to the right places and have substantial impact. ANSA funding: builds the capacity of communities to care for orphans; delivers life-saving AIDS medicines; helps bring world-class emergency care to poor infants and children; drills wells that bring water to rural areas; and so much more. These are sound investments that reap tangible benefits now and for future generations. In addition to supporting and expanding effective programs already in place, ANSA works with African experts and activists to develop viable solutions to complex problems, including the AIDS orphan crisis. There are over one million children who have been orphaned by AIDS and more children lose their parents every single day. Relatives and neighbors do everything they can, stretching their meager resources to the breaking point. There are many orphans who don’t even have shoes, blankets, or enough food to eat. Many have to drop out of school to care for their younger brothers and sisters, and without education, face a lifetime of poverty. At the request of South Africa’s leading pediatric AIDS doctor, ANSA brought together a task force of African AIDS and child welfare specialists and care providers to develop a more comprehensive approach to help these children. The team focused on reaching child-run households, orphans taken in by elderly relatives or neighbors, and children whose parents are sick or dying. The result was It Takes a Village (ITV), a groundbreaking, program which trains, funds, and empowers community-based organizations to provide comprehensive services to the orphaned and vulnerable children in their midst. ITV also works to increase HIV testing and AIDS treatment, in order to prevent deaths and more children left behind. Launched by ANSA in 2005, ITV is already reaching 2,000 children, helping to address their physical, emotional, social, and intellectual needs. ITV is having a powerful impact in Ingwavuma, a rural community deep in KwaZulu-Natal, where over 40% of adults are HIV positive. With our local partner, Ingwavuma Orphan Care, we visited children benefiting from ITV. We could see the difference in the children who’d just entered the program and those whose lives had been changed by ongoing ITV support. Hlonophile is a teenager who lives with her grandmother, Gogo Gina, in a tiny, well-kept hut built of mud and stone. Gogo Gina had been deathly ill and none of her home remedies were working, so she reached out to ITV for help. Diagnosed with AIDS and given anti-retroviral treatment, Gogo Gina has regained her health and enthusiasm for life; she now convinces her neighbors to get tested for HIV. Hlonophile, who came so close to losing her beloved Gogo, now has dreams for her future. She plans on becoming a doctor and studies hard so that, one day, she can help save lives. There are over a million orphans in South Africa, who need our help to survive and fulfill their dreams and potential. $350 provides ITV services as well as food, clothing, shoes, blankets, and other basic supplies to one child for a year, and $3,500 gives a child these services for a decade. $155,000 brings ITV services to 1,000 orphans in a community. ANSA’s approach isn’t about pity or charity. The focus is on empowerment, capacity-building, and providing resources to African efforts that are solving Africa’s problems. ANSA also works to tackle the root causes of problems. In this vein, ANSA has been a major funder of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a powerful South African movement recognized as a leading force in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. We’re proud that ANSA has stood firmly with TAC in their brave, protracted fight to change harmful corporate and government policies and to bring AIDS education to millions. TAC has succeeded in winning many essential battles, including the legal right for all South Africans to have access to AIDS medicine. Our combined action and generosity are extremely powerful. As Carlos says, "Together we are weapons of mass compassion." Alfre recently wrote, "Just as the cumulative will of the South African people—combined with international support—broke the back of Apartheid, that will is now ensuring that AIDS no longer has to be a death sentence. We found effective South Africans of all ages and stripes, well-organized on the ground, and determined to move this ship of hope forward. What they desperately need is our resources to fuel the passage." Join us so together we can make a greater difference. With your help, ANSA can help prevent new infections and deaths by reaching more people with essential information about prevention, testing, and treatment in South Africa and America. Together, we can provide urgently needed assistance to more children orphaned by AIDS or living in poverty. Please give as generously as you can. We’re grateful for your support and wish you and those you love a peaceful, healthy 2007. With gratitude,
CONVENIENT GIVING OPTIONS Donate by Mail Send a check or money order payable to: Artists for a New South Africa P.O. Box 1616 Los Angeles, CA 90034 Donate by Phone Call Toll Free 1-877 4-AFRICA (423-7422) Donate Online:  CONTACT US For more information or any questions about donating to ANSA please contact us at supportansa@ansafrica.org or via phone at (310) 204-1748 ext 227. |