"Eighty-five per cent of those infected in Africa will use some form of traditional medicines to treat the spiritual and physical suffering which accompanies HIV and AIDS," writes Michael McColly, journalist and AIDS activist, in his new memoir."Yet, if you type the word "traditional medicine" or "healer" on the diskette that holds over five thousand titles of abstracts sent to the conference for display or discussion in seminars, only five show up."
For years, McColly has used his writings and the web to correct that imbalance in AIDS research. He bridges gigantic medical gaps between deveoloping countries and America, while teaching spiritual methods of combating the disease.
For all these reasons, I picked him for my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.
Jason Boog:
Could you explain a few of your favorite NGO's or projects working with the AIDS crisis, and tell us some websites we can visit? How has the web created a community for AIDS awareness?
Michael McColly:
On my links page is a section on all the NGO's and CBO's I visited. There were so many!
I must say that one of my favorites was the NAZ Foundation which works with men who have sex with men (MSMs) or some would say they are male sex workers. This organization works with these men by training them as peer educators and also giving them medical care and a place to actually safely meet each other.
Others are EMPOWER in Bangkok, which works with female sex workers. Also, of course, Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa has forced the government to keep its commitment to getting drugs to South Africa's huge population of people with HIV.
It also has helped other AIDS organizations through out the world. There is also an NGO in Senegal, African Consultants International that does trainings and assists CBOs all over West Africa.
It's director is a former Peace Corps volunteer, Gary Engleberg, one of those volunteers who left in 1965, and basically has been involved in Africa ever since. Heroic man. Returned volunteers are working in AIDS care and prevention everywhere!
» Writing About HIV and AIDS from ThePublishingSpot
As my week-long interview with HIV/AIDS activist and writer Michael McColly continues, I wanted to link to a few great blogs that explore the social and scientific impact of the HIV/AIDS virus.If you are looking for a scientific exploration... [Read More]
Tracked on: May 24, 2006 11:17 AM | Permalink to Trackback