Meeting with a hero
by Betty McNamara
Stephen Lewis is my hero. He was appointed
a UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS
in Africa in 2001. and ever since his work there has consumed him. He sits
on the World Health Organization's Commission on the Social Determinants
of Health and he established a foundation dedicated to easing the pain of
HIV/AIDS in Africa. Last winter I listened to his Massey Lectures on CBC
Radio. This spring I met him in Fredericton.
I can't say it was a dream come
true, because I never dreamed I would meet this man who has dedicated so
much of his life to helping make this world a better place.
When I saw he would speak on The Politics of Compassion at Wilmot United Church on April 28, I got my ticket right away. I went early the night of the lecture so I could sit in the front row and take notes on Millennium Development Goals like cutting poverty in half and educating children ... goals I fear will never be met, let alone by the 2015 target.
I listened as Lewis told of the displaced persons in Darfur. I felt tears as he told of the atrocities committed against the women in the refugee camps. His voice cracked with emotion. The church, packed to the balconies, was silent. He talked about HIV and AIDS in Africa. I know most of the facts -- study them for my work with The Primate's World Relief and Development Fund -- but I had never heard them from someone who actually walks with the suffering; someone with first hand experience.
He said that when an African teacher asked her 10-year-old students to write a paper on a topic of their choice, eight out of 10 wrote about death. It is what they are most familiar with: they attend funerals during their noon break; they attend funerals after school and on weekends. These children should be playing ball or with dolls. My grandchildren do not go to funerals after school, they play hockey, they go to gymnastics, they play soccer.
He told us that doctors, nurses and teachers are dying in Africa. In one school district, 10 teachers die each month and others are sick. They have anti-retroviral drugs, but no one to administer them. Social workers are sick so there are none of those services or interventions.
Lewis lost his composure momentarily when he described a recent school visit. As is the custom when they have a special visitor, the students lined up outside to sing for him. The headmaster told him there were 350 students in the school, 250 of whom were orphans. Yet they are the lucky ones. They have the money for school fees so they get to eat five days a week. Many are not so fortunate.
"Why are African people not worth as much as others?" he asked.
We had no answers.
His talk was impassioned, inspiring and informed, yet he spoke with great humility. This is what makes him a hero to me.
My first memories of Stephen Lewis are of a handsome, charismatic and very articulate young politician. He used words I had never heard in my small world; in fact I didn't understand many of them. My father told me about the CCF (the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation) the new party out to change the country. Lewis's father David was national secretary. It disbanded and was replaced by the New Democratic Party, the party that elected Lewis to the provincial legislature of Ontario when he was still in university.
He worked for the NDP until 1974. I suspect he dazzled the MLAs with his quick wit and vast vocabulary. He worked as a labour mediator, columnist, and broadcaster, before being appointed Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations where he was introduced to Africa, fell in love with the continent and its people. His next appointment was with UNICEF in 1990. I was proud that a Canadian held that position, and that it was Stephen Lewis. In 1994 he investigated the Genocide in Rwanda, and in 2001 Kofi Annan appointed him as Special Envoy to Africa.
I took my copy of Lewis's Race Against Time to Wilmot Church with me and my hero inscribed " Betty, I really like Anglicans, Stephen Lewis."
I leave you with the simple question asked by a 13-year-old girl in the audience at Wilmot Church, and Lewis's equally simple answer.
"What can we do?"
"Open your heart."
Betty McNamara is Diocesan PWRDF Coordinator
