Associated Press - November 30, 2007

Children of Zion Inc., a Bel Air-based mission that Bush highlighted in a speech after meeting privately with the groups, hopes to receive federal funds for the first time as a result of the exchange, co-founder Rebecca Mink said.

"He laughed with us and he cried with us. He is a real-life person who is down to earth and has compassion for people with AIDS," Mink said.

She and her husband Gary run Children of Zion Village, a group home and school in Namibia that houses 55 children orphaned by AIDS. The mission is supported primarily by Mount Zion United Methodist Church in Bel Air, with help from a number of other churches including Calvary United Methodist, the site of Friday's event.

Other meeting participants were from Mututa Memorial Center, a Zambian caregiver training facility supported by World Vision Inc. that Mrs. Bush visited in June; Catholic Relief Services; World Relief, a Baltimore-based charity; World Hope International, based in Alexandria, Va.; and McLean Bible Church of Fairfax, Va.

JoAnn Lyon, executive director of World Hope International, said her group has received $9.7 million from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief for its work in Haiti, Zambia and Mozambique

"We are encouraged regarding PEPFAR and what it can do," Lyon said.

Bush said in his speech that the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa receiving treatment for AIDS has gone from 50,000 five years ago to nearly 1.4 million now.

Separately Friday, on the eve of World AIDS Day, a coalition of AIDS activists critical of the administration's programs rallied outside the White House. Organizer George Kerr, co-chairman of DC Fights Back, said in a telephone interview that PEPFAR is flawed because grant recipients must adopt specific organization-wide positions opposing prostitution and the program doesn't clearly support homosexuals' right to receive care.

Although the program's guidelines state that men having sex with men should receive priority as a high-risk population, the United States has not condemned threats against homosexuals in Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal, according to an Oct. 11 letter from Human Rights Watch to congressional members.

Mark Dybul, U.S. global AIDS coordinator, told a Washington news conference Friday that the U.S. spends "a lot of effort on anti-stigma campaigns."

Kerr also said the federal government should spend more on domestic HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment. Dybul said the Bush administration has dedicated about $90 billion to domestic HIV and AIDS, a 47 percent increase over the previous administration.

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