Help the Campaign to End AIDS Caravan to DC
From Larry Bryant of C2EA:
In October, nine caravans filled with thousands of people nationwide will make their way across the country, converging November 5 on Washington, D.C. Why? It's all a part of The Campaign to End AIDS (www.C2EA.org), an exciting new national coalition of people with HIV/AIDS and their supporters–and I'm proud to be among them. We're hitting our nation's capital with a message: We have what it takes to end the AIDS epidemic, here and abroad. All we need is the political will of our lawmakers to make it happen.
Medical science alone cannot overcome AIDS. Tools to contain the spread of HIV and prolong life for people with AIDS exist. Yet in 2002 an estimated three million men, women, and children died of AIDS. One reason for this failure is that prevention efforts are underfunded and are based on religious beliefs rather than scintific methods. Another reason HIV has become the world's leading infectious cause of adult deaths is that most of the 42 million people now infected live in the developing world and cannot afford the drugs that might extend their lives. In America, the recent irony is that people living with AIDS living in the Gulf Coast states risk their lives surviving poverty, unemployment, and now hurricane after hurricane only to get sick and die due to Medicaid cuts and absence of care and services. Health professionals seeking to serve these patients stand by helplessly, absent the financial resources and political will required to deliver prevention, care, and treatment within the poor communities that have borne the brunt of this pandemic.
Things have got to change! That's one reason The Campaign to End AIDS is going to D.C. from November 5th to 9th for Five Days of Action. Several thousand delegates will visit lawmakers to urge them to vote for sound, compassionate domestic and global HIV/AIDS policies. There'll be concerts, prayer services, street demonstrations…even a massive March to End AIDS right into Anacostia, a D.C. neighborhood hard-hit by the epidemic. We'll spread our message that AIDS can be stopped…if only our leaders will do the right thing.
These brave pilgrims can't get there without lots of help. That's why I'm fundraising for the Campaign to End AIDS. Won't you please make a donation? All you have to do is click the link at the bottom of this letter to go to the C2EA home page and make a donation. By doing so, you'll help thousands of us raise our voices–and demand the change we need to reverse the global AIDS epidemic.
Follow this link to visit the caravan page for Brownsville Caravan: "Soul of the South".
Follow this link to visit Larry Bryant's page.
Larry Bryant