Telluride AIDS Benefit: Inside Out of Africa!

21 Feb Telluride AIDS Benefit: Inside Out of Africa!

The Telluride AIDS Benefit continues to wave its “Fight.Fund.Educate” banner on high – and with good reason. With regard to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, today’s political environment is, at best, a giant question mark; at worst, toxic. On the scientific front, however, there is cause for optimism, though to date there is still no definitive cure.

TAB’s week of awareness education and fundraising to help support hundreds of individuals and families of all demographics living with HIV/AIDS begins February 20 with the Student Fashion Show. Events include the  sneak peek fashion show, 2/27;  AIDS Education Day (Telluride and Ridgway) 2/27 and 2/28; the gala fashion show, 2/29; wrap party, 2/29; free HIV testing at the Telluride Library, 2/29, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.; and the sample sale, 3/2. Go here for more, including tickets.

For more on TAB’s beneficiaries, go here.

To donate, go here.

And scroll down to read about TAB (and Telluride) in Africa, a story of a global coming together to help change the world for the good. 

In general:

The world continually shrinks through telecommunications and tragedies and countries become communities like Telluride with different constituencies, but similar challenges. AIDS is one problem we all share.

Yes, still.

The Telluride AIDS Benefit is a model nonprofit: the organization asks for very little in monetary support from the greater Telluride region, but puts Telluride on the world map in a good way: in fact, TAB’s welcomed embrace extends all the way to Africa.

AIDS is widely considered the worst health calamity since the Black Death of the Middle Ages – and there is still no definitive cure. East and Southern Africa are the regions hardest hit by HIV. According to online research,Sub Saharan-Africa is home to around 6.2% of the world’s population but over half (54%) of the total number of people living with HIV in the world (20.6 million people). In 2018, there were 800,000 new HIV infections, and in some countries teachers, doctors, and nurses are dying faster than they can be replaced and treatment ranges from poor to nonexistent.

In 1999, in response to the crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, TAB teamed up with the African Mayors Initiative for Community Action on AIDS at the Local Level (AMICAALL) and the United Nations Development Program in a pilot project utilizing a “sister city” approach to combating overwhelming odds. Over the years, the Telluride AIDS Benefit  maintained ties with Manzini, though now under a different umbrella. Based on recent data from the 2006–2007 Demographic and Health Survey, with an estimated adult prevalence of 25.9 percent, Swaziland still holds the world’s record for most severe HIV/AIDS epidemic. The scourge poses a serious challenge to the country’s economic development – and its children. Enter the Manzini Youth Care Project and Intel.

Manzini & Intel:

“TAB funding has ensured that the clinic and orphanages have been able to keep our doors open,” Ed Hendrickson, Exec. Dir, Manzini Youth Care, Swaziland, Africa.

The Manzini Youth Project was started as a community service initiative by the boys of the Salesian Secondary School in Manzini, in response to the growing numbers of street children in Swaziland. Children were taken off the street and housed in the disused mortuary rooms of St Teresa’s mission, with the primary intention of re-integrating them into their families. With the Salesian community of Don Bosco in Manzini, Father Larry McDonnell assembled a local community committee to establish the shelter.

Over the years, the Manzini Youth Care Project has provided accommodation, food, shelter, education, training, and life skills to hundreds of marginalized, orphaned, abandoned, and homeless young people at risk through poverty.

Manzini continues to expand clinic services as it continues educating about HIV and AIDS in Swaziland, a location, as we said, with the highest prevalence rate of HIV in the world – but no longer with the aid of TAB. Hendrickson recently told TAB’s ED, Jessica Galbo, that Manzini is no longer in need of TAB’s largesse.

But that’s just part of the good news. The rest of the story begins with “A guy walked into a bar.”

The guy was John Parks, an engineer who has worked for Intel for 18 years. At the New Sheridan Bar, Parks began a conversation with the woman seated next to him. Michelle Maughan, then the executive director of the Telluride AIDS Benefit, told him about the long arm of TAB, and how the nonprofit supported beneficiaries throughout Colorado and Utah all the way to Africa.

The chat grew legs, evolving into a relationship with Intel’s Employee Service Corp (IESC), which partnered for two projects in Manzini, Swaziland.

In November 2019, TAB’s current ED, Jessica Galbo, announced that Intel’s Employee Service Corp (IESC) and Telluride AIDS Benefit (TAB) had launched the second phase of their partnership effort in Manzini, Swaziland – though not exclusively at Hendrickson’s orphanage.

Starting in mid-November 2019, a team of eight Intel engineer volunteers spent two weeks in Manzini creating a computer lab for the St. Anne’s High School for Girls, supporting over 350 young girls in Swaziland. The Telluride AIDS Benefit/Intel effort was designed to improve the quality of life and open future doors for the youth of Manzini that might otherwise have remained closed.

St. Anne’s High School. photo courtesy of John Parks and Intel.

John Parks with his tribe in Manzini.

Parks with more of his Manzini tribe. The smiles tell the story.

The first phase of the partnership was successfully completed in November 2018, the project focused on rehabilitating one of the town’s high school computer labs at an all-boys school. Intel installed new computer systems and a networked content server with hardware and software donated by TAB. The project increased student access to hands-on experience with technology. And the team included Doug Ford, a TAB board member and friend of Parks.

Swaziland, officially known as the Kingdom of Eswatini, currently has the highest HIV and AIDS infection rate in the world. It is estimated that over 26% of the adult population is currently infected, reducing life expectancy to just 32 years, the lowest documented in the world. Many of those living with HIV do not have access to lifesaving medications, and as a result, thousands have died leaving behind close to 100,000-orphaned children.

TAB has been proud to partner with Intel’s Employee Service Corp to bring the technology initiative to Manzini. Not only is the community benefitting from the new and improved access to technology, but there is also the fact that improving education has been shown to have a positive impact the HIV and AIDS epidemic by reducing HIV infection rates through increasing access to information about the disease, as well as providing greater opportunities to improve individuals’ lives through enhanced knowledge and achievement.

The program is just one more example of how the really important news of our time fails to make headlines.The movers and shakers on our planet are not just politicians and suits, they are people who, at the grassroots level, care about their neighbors around the globe and put teeth into that love with initiatives like the TAB/Intel program – which is now linked to the Telluride High School: kids at computers in Manzini are in touch with young people in the computer lab in Telluride. They play games and otherwise challenge one another.

In a challenged world, that is a very good thing.

TAB/Intel/Manzini is a case in point that education can trump stigma.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZajC5EC9OV0

Botswana, where TAB finds its next beneficiary?:

The Telluride AIDS Benefit keeps repeating itself – and with good reason: it is not over until it is over. The need to “Fight, Fund, and Educate,” TAB’s mantra, ends when the HIV/AIDS pandemic ends.

Which is not yet.

And certainly not in Africa.

Proof of that fact of life was thrown into high relief when the Telluride Foundation’s VP Programs, April Montgomery, returned from Botswana after spending the month of May 2019 on sabbatical there.

Botswana is a small, landlocked country of 2.3 million people, hundreds of thousands of whom have been lifted out of poverty by the government’s diamond windfall, which dates back to the 1970s when mining began big time. Yet Botswana remains one of the countries most affected by HIV in the world, despite the government’s progressive provision of universal free antiretroviral treatment (ART) to any resident with HIV, funding that (and other programs like infrastructure and education) with royalties from the diamond crop. Still,  23% of the population is infected: Botswana has the third highest HIV prevalence in the world.

Montgomery was one of six resource mobilization professionals from Colorado consulting with nonprofit organizations working in the AIDS/HIV space. The initiative was the brainchild of Amy McBride, a Ridgway local working for the Peace Corps as a volunteer in Botswana.

Telluride Foundation’s April Montgomery and the team from Botswana initiative.

Collectively the professionals Montgomery worked with had more than 100 years of combined experience. Together they led resource mobilization workshops in Gaborone and Francistown for 100 CSO representatives. (In Botswana, nonprofit organizations are called “CSOs.”) They then traveled to the CSOs’ sites to spend two days in one-on-one consultation on various resource mobilization strategies, including individual giving, memberships, board development, corporate partnerships, social enterprise, and grant-writing. The primary objective was to help each CSO develop a resource mobilization plan to raise funds from within Botswana to reduce dependence on declining international HIV donor funding.

As it turned out, funding for HIV/AIDS was being cut by 40% and expected to continue to decrease. Further, when international funding was readily available, those monies did not come with a blueprint for effective capacity building, an exit strategy, or support for building nonprofit infrastructure. As a result, in the face of severe and worsening budget cuts, local nonprofits were and are having to learn quickly how to fundraise within their own country, as well as become more efficient.

When she returned to Telluride in June 2019, here is what Montgomery had to say:

“It was an amazing opportunity. I’m returning so exhilarated and inspired by the passion and dedication of the people of Botswana, who are trying to tackle a complex issue, with the goal of eradicating HIV/AIDS by 2030.”

But there are endemic challenges, which Montgomery explained in a recent conversation:

“In Botswana, where there is no gender equality, sexual abuse is prevalent, as is an aversion to using condoms, so women and children are the populations most impacted by the AIDS virus. And because the average annual income in Botswana is close to $20,000 a year, the country is considered upper middle income and so funding gets directed to poorer countries in Africa.”

A complex situation is further complicated by the fact that the government provides its people with the aforementioned anti-viral medications.

“As a result young people shrug off the virus because they figure pills provide all the protection they need,” explained Montgomery. “So HIV/AIDS is on the rise among Botswana’s youth.”

Just like here in the US, especially in rural America, the heart of the opioid epidemic.

“Because I have had – to my knowledge – no family or friends impacted by AIDS, I did not prioritize the issue. After Botswana, however, AIDS was front and center on my radar and I am now so grateful for the work that the Telluride AIDS Benefit is doing on the Western Slope, on the Front Range – and in Africa. On my trip, it became clear that the health of a country’s economy is tied to the health of its people. When they are sick, they miss school. They miss work. And government funds that could support education are driven to healthcare. Prevention education is key to mitigating the crisis, which is still stigmatized in Botswana and throughout Africa. And prevention education is at the heart of TAB,” concluded Montgomery.’

TAB’s executive director, Jessica Galbo:

Jessica Galbo joined TAB as Executive Director in August 2019, having formerly served  as fashion show director, choreographer, and assistant director.

Galbo is experienced in, and passionate about non-profit work.

As TAB’s ED, Galbo is responsible for working closely with the board of directors and managing volunteer groups. She is the main public contact and spokesperson for the organization and represents the Telluride AIDS Benefit in all professional capacities.

Galbo is helming TAB at an exciting moment for the organization as it continues its important work in the greater Telluride community – and the world community.