Famine
Southern Africa has been
suffering through severe drought. Crops have failed, farms have closed and
many face starvation.
The UN World Food Program estimates over 6 million of Zimbabwe's the 11 million
total population need food provided for survival.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic has created a medical,
economic and sociological catastrophe.
To put this into perspective, in the year
2007 the global total number of people reported with HIV/AIDS was 33 million,
and a staggering 22 million lived in sub-Saharan Africa! 75% of ALL deaths
from HIV/AIDS in the entire world are in this one region!
This crisis threatens to wipe out a
generation of the most productive citizens. Because HIV/AIDS is killing the
sexually active people aged 15-49, it is leaving behind the weak and vulnerable
– children and the elderly. It has created an orphan problem that staggers the
imagination with millions children already orphaned.
The average lifespan in Zimbabwe & Zambia
has dropped from 61 fifteen years ago to 34 today. This is all the more tragic
when you consider HIV/AIDS is a preventable disease!
The combination of political unrest,
disease, and poverty has prompted the United Nations World Food Programme to
describe the situation in Southern Africa “the world’s worst humanitarian
crisis.”
This plague is unique in history.
The sad difference between other plagues of disease and this crisis is that HIV/AIDS sweeps through communities selectively killing the most productive adults (sexually active adults aged 15-49) and leaves behind the weak and most vulnerable (children and elderly). Throughout history other plagues of disease targeted the weak. Never before in history has a plague swept through a land selectively killing the most productive adults and leaving so many helpless and vulnerable children behind.
The Children Suffer
Because
AIDS is concentrated in the sexually active population, the majority of whom are
parents, the implications for
Zimbabwe’s
future are enormous. There is a real possibility that the next generation will
be dominated by gangs of parentless youths, growing up alone without love or
structure.
Without medicine to treat HIV/AIDS hope runs thin and many are resorting to desperate measures such as the tribal myth that a man can become well through having sex with a young virgin. The tragedy of child rape is now common and many innocent children are venerable without family and support.
Without love, hope and a plan for their lives, the people of Zimbabwe face an almost unthinkable future. When we consider the blessing and privilege we were born into and all that we now enjoy, …it is very hard to look the other way.
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