Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - November 28, 2007
David Dishneau
In advance of Saturday's World AIDS Day observance, Bush will meet with representatives from groups that have been fighting AIDS, and discuss his plan to provide an additional $30 billion for HIV and AIDS prevention, care and treatment worldwide for the next five years, White House spokesman Alex Conant said.
The event is set for Friday morning at Calvary United Methodist Church in downtown Mount Airy, a community of 8,700 about 25 miles west of Baltimore.
The administration chose Calvary because of its involvement with Children of Zion Village, Conant said. The orphanage in northeastern Namibia was opened in 2003 by missionaries Gary and Rebecca Mink of Rising Sun, Md.
They belong to Mount Zion United Methodist Church in Bel Air, which provides most of the home's $14,000-a.m.onth operating funds with help from other United Methodist churches in Maryland and Ohio, said Lisa McLaughlin, board chairwoman of Children of Zion Inc.
She said Children of Zion receives no money from the U.S. or Namibian governments.
Rebecca Mink said in a telephone interview that she hoped the attention by Bush would generate more support for such programs.
"I think it's a wonderful thing that he's doing, and that it will open a lot of people's eyes," Mink said. "This will enable a lot of people to become more aware of what is needed."
She said there are 4,000 to 5,000 orphans within a four-hour drive of the group home in Katima Mulilo. The orphanage houses 55 children up to 17 years old.
Children of Zion also feeds 116 more orphans in nearby Mafuta and hopes to build a group home and preschool there, McLaughlin said.
Kevin Meadows, a Calvary church member who spent 2 1/2 months last summer at Children of Zion Village, said the experience taught him there are real people behind the staggering statistics of HIV infection in Africa.
"Even though they are orphans in one of the poorest countries in the world, they have every bit as much talent as kids here. And just being given a little bit of a push to cultivate that, they could really do incredible things," said Meadows, 26, a public school art teacher.
Conant said Bush wants to double the $15 billion that the U.S. committed in 2004 to therapy, testing and counseling through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The program is active in 120 countries, with a concentrated focus on 15, including Namibia, where it seeks to have an impact at the national level.
The Institute of Medicine reported in March that 800,000 people in those focus countries have received AIDS drugs through the program, while another 19 million got testing and counseling. Therapy was able to block transmission of the disease from mother to infant in an estimated 100,000 cases, according to the report. The Institute of Medicine is an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, an independent organization chartered to advise the U.S. government on scientific issues.
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