Thursday, May 24, 2001
This is a story Jim Quattrocki, Kevin Jacobson and I produced in Bukoba, Tanzania with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania. Sister Judith worked with the ELCT’s HIV/Aids program known as OSSA. She was a saint.
We followed three orphan children (HIV positive) as they went for water. The fresh water source came from a spring about half a mile away. The kids carry the water jugs down to the spring, fill them up and lug them back up to the house. The oldest boy carries the biggest jug. It must have weight about 25 pounds. The smallest girl, who couldn’t have been more than five, was responsible for carrying two, gallon jugs.
At the time, the ELCT was caring for 50,000 Aids orphans in the Bukoba district alone.
According to the WHO, an estimated 35 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic in the mid- to late 1970s.
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