Skip to main content

Reply to "AIDS turns 20"

Rally in Washington DC -- April 10, 2002 * 12:30 PM

Join Danny Glover, Rep. Barbara Lee, religious leaders, people with AIDS, and students to demand that Congress and the Bush Administration:

Donate the Dollars
Treat the People
and Drop the Debt

to fight AIDS worldwide
___________________________________

In the midst of a global health disaster, our nation's leaders have failed to commit the modest resources needed to stop the decimation
of impoverished nations.

Join us on Wednesday, April 10 when we gather at the Capitol from our different communities, faiths, and backgrounds to unite in the call for our country to fulfill the ethical demand for access to AIDS medication for all. We will demand the the United State contribute the modest resources--$750 million emergency supplemental-- needed to fight the escalating global AIDS epidemic.

Sponsors: Health GAP, ACT UP Philadelphia, ACT UP New York, Artists for a New South Africa, and Jubilee USA.

Free transportation from New York City and Philadelphia. Details below.
For more information and flyers go to: www.healthgap.org
_____________________________________________

>Since 1996 when life-extending antiretroviral therapy first became available for those that could afford it in wealthy countries, not one person in the developing world has received such drugs as a result of financial assistance from the US or other wealthy governments.

Not one person. Not one person of the 2.3 million Africans who died in 2001 due to AIDS.

A global movement for access to treatment--people fighting for their lives and their supporters around the world--have brought about a shift in US government policy and in the international community. As a matter of policy anyway, the lives of people with AIDS in poor countries are no longer expendable.

However, resources from the US are needed if this political victory is to become a meaningful reality for the 38 million who do not have
access to the medicine they need to survive.

As we planned this event, we considered periodically ringing a bell to mark each death from AIDS during the time of our rally.

Then we did the math.

8000 people die from AIDS each day. One death every 11 seconds.

That is not a periodic ringing. It is a metronome of overwhelming and absolutely unnecessary suffering and loss from a treatable illness.

We can allow the bell to toll,
or we can demand change.

Please join us, through your endorsements, your presence on April 10, and through your contributions to this struggle.

______________________________________________

FREE BUSES FROM NEW YORK CITY and PHILADELPHIA

NEW YORK:
Free buses leave NYC at 6:30 am from Columbus Circle at 59th Street and Broadway. Meals provided. Call to reserve seats.

Info: tel 212-674-9598 * email: salynch@healthgap.org * www.healthgap.org


Info: 215.731.1844 * e-mail: actup@critpath.org * www.healthgap.org

For information on making donations, please see end of message

_____________________________________________

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

1. Rally and protest

Time: 12:30-2:00 PM
Location: West side of Capitol steps (Washington Monument side)

People with AIDS and their supporters from the across the country
demanding life-saving action on global AIDS from Congress and the
Administration converge on the Capitol for a spirited, powerful
rally. Speakers include people with AIDS, Danny Glover, others.

Activists and health experts educate Congress about global AIDS crisis

Time: 2:30-4:30 PM
Location: Congressional Office Buildings

Hundreds of AIDS activists and other experts will move from the demonstration to Congressional office buildings to demand legislators take the action needed to save lives. These post-rally lobby visits will be an opportunity to show our power and breadth to key Members;they will not be long, technical meetings.

3. Post-rally dinner for out-of-towners

Time: 5:00-6:00 PM
Location: TBA

Dinner for exhausted activists!

__________________________________________________Please send your endorsement to salynch@healthgap.org

We endorse the April 10 Rally for Global AIDS

Name:

Organization:

Email:

Address:

Phone:
Fax:

Endorsement is
( ) Individual
( ) Organizational
( ) Both

I / my organization can assist with the following needs:

( ) Will attend / bring others
( ) Will assist with rally by:
( ) Will make financial contribution (see below)

__________________________________________________

Donations sought for expenses of rally, especially transportation andfood needs of low-income participants. For example, it costs $35 for
bus fee, food and local transportation for one person living with HIV from Philadelphia to participate in the rally.

Tax-deductible donations can be mailed to:
Mobilization Against AIDS,
584 Castro Street, # 416, San Francisco, CA 94114

Please make checks out to Mobilization Against AIDS. In the memo>line, write "Health GAP April 10." Thank you.

Remember that someday the AIDS crisis will be over. And when that day has come and gone there will be people alive--gay and straight people, black and white people, men and women--who will hear that once there was a terrible disease, and that a brave group of people stood up and fought and in some cases died so others might live and
be free. --Vito Russo, October 10, 1988

"... we've heard so much of it before. I don't know how all of you working in the field can stand it...So let me tell you what we haven't heard...we haven't heard where the money is coming from to stop the epidemic from further wanton spread, as we all know it can be stopped. " - Stephen Lewis, ICASA Conference December 2001,
Ouagadougou,
Burkina

ENDORSERS

Sponsoring Organizations:

Health GAP
Jubilee USA
ACT UP New York ACT UP Philadelphia
Artists for a New South Africa

Organizational Endorsements:

50 Years Is Enough Network, Washington DC
ACT UP/Cleveland, OH
ACT UP/East Bay, CA
ACT UP/Los Angeles, CA
ACT UP/Paris, France
AFL-CIO, Washington DC
AIDS Foundation of Chicago, IL
AIDS Health Care Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
AIDSmeds.com, Brooklyn, NY
AXIOS Eastern Orthodox LGBT Christian AIDS Ministry & Network, NYC, NY
Action AIDS, Inc., Philadelphia, PA
Africa Action, Washington DC
Boston Global Action Network - Africa AIDS Project, Boston, MA
Bread and Roses Community Fund, Philadelphia, PA
Call To Action of Michigan, Washtenaw Branch, Ann Arbor, MI
Center for Independence of the Disabled in NY, Brooklyn, NY
Critical Path AIDS Project, Philadelphia, PA
Drug Policy Forum Tri-State, Philadelphia, PA
Florida AIDS Action, Tampa, FL
Foundation for Integrative AIDS Research (FIAR), Brooklyn
Global AIDS Alliance (GAA), Washington DC
Global Campaign for Microbicides, Philadelphia, PA
Green Party
International AIDS Empowerment, El Paso, TX
International Action Center, NYC, NY
International Socialist Organization, Washington DC
Investing in Our Neighborhoods, Inc., Philadelphia, PA
Jubilee South Africa
KAIPPG/International, Barrington, RI
Mobilization Against AIDS International, San Francisco, CA
National Organization for Women, Philadelphia Chapter, PA
New York State Independent Living Council, Albany, NY
North Coast HIV/AIDS Coalition, Cleveland, OH
Northwest Coalition for AIDS Treatment in Africa (NCATA), Seattle, WA
Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women, Philadelphia, PA
POZ Magazine, NYC, NY
Project Inform, San Francisco, CA
Queers For Racial & Economic Justice, NYC
Rainbow Flags for Mumia, NYC
SPEAKOUT Project, Portland, Maine
Society for the Advancement of Women, Lilongwe, Malawi
Society of Missionaries of Africa, Justice and Peace Office, Washington DC
South Africa Development Fund, Boston, MA
The Southern Africa Network of AIDS Service Organisations (SANASO),
Harare, Zimbabwe
Student Global AIDS Campaign, Cambridge, MA
Temple Covenant of Peace, Easton, PA
Treatment Action Group (TAG), NYC
United Methodist Board of Church and Society, Washington DC
Vermont Justice of the Peace, Burlington, VT
Washington Office on Africa, Washington DC
WORLD (Women Organized to Respond to Life Threatening Diseases), Oakland, CA
Youth Health Empowerment Project, Philadelphia, PA

How many times have you heard that it's a matter of political leadership; that youth are the most vulnerable; that young women are
the most vulnerable among the most vulnerable; that the interlocking
factors of gender and poverty compromise our responses; that we have
to roll out programmes that address mother to child transmission;
that the orphan population is growing dramatically; that the social
and economic consequences of the pandemic are catastrophic; that
societies are shredded; that health systems are defunct; that schools
are without teachers; that behaviour change is elusive; that a
contemporary plague has descended on Africa forcing upon the
continent a struggle for survival?

So let me tell you what we haven't heard...we haven't heard where the
money is coming from to stop the epidemic from further wanton spread,
as we all know it can be stopped. "

- Stephen Lewis, ICASA Conference December 2001, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Paul Davis
pdavis@critpath.org
Health GAP Coalition
ACT UP Philadelphia

+1.215.833.4102 mobile
+1.215.474.6886 tel.
+1.215.474.4793 fax

------------------------------------------------
×
×
×
×