Laurie Black Rooney is going to Africa.
She’s a “grand-other” with the local Grandmothers on the Grand (she isn’t actually a grandmother yet), and was the local nominee for a March Grandmothers’ Gathering in Swaziland sponsored by the Stephen Lewis Foundation.
Originally, she thought going would be a long shot.
There are 350 grandmothers groups across the country affiliated with the foundation’s Grandmothers to Grandmothers program, and the 40 women selected would be picked based on the regions they
represented.
But in her application she stressed her job working with victims of violent crime, and her interest in the plight of people in Africa, especially those hit by the HIV/Aids crisis.
“It been a passion of mine for years,” she says.
“For me, I give here and I give over there … the need is different there,” she says. “In my opinion, their need is greater - they have no clean water and no health care, and no access to drugs.”
Access to medication, and especially AIDS medication, is a special concern to Grandmothers groups, who have lobbied for a change to drug laws to allow cheaper drugs to combat AIDS to be spread through poor regions of Africa.
In 2007 Black Rooney spearheaded a screening of two DVDs on the subject at the Gorge Cinema, ending up raising $1,800.
“I saw how one family can mobilize so many people,” she says.
She discovered the Grandmothers on the Grand group then, and the group supported the screening while Black Rooney joined in the group.
When the opportunity to go to Africa came up, she thought it would be important to get a chance to see what she’s fundraised for with her own eyes.
Now that she’s been chosen, Black Rooney expects to get more information on preparations in the next few days. Orientation sessions, planning, and probably vaccinations will likely follow.
The conference is being held in Swaziland, a landlocked country surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique on the southeastern edge of Africa. It’s bringing women who are members of the Lewis Foundation’s grandmothers groups from all over southern Africa.
Black Rooney says she expects the Canadian group will be helping run the conference, helping with logistics and things like setting up tables and chairs and doing cleanup – as well as taking part in workshops and discussion groups, and the group of 40 Canadians will be divided up to do specific projects.
The women will also be invited to visit African grandmothers in their own communities to learn about challenges first-hand.
Black Rooney said she hopes to gain an experience of what it’s like to face the challenges these women face every day, heading households ravaged by AIDS, raising their orphaned grandchildren with few resources.
“You can read about it and see it, but to actually experience it is something else again,” she says. “I want to spread the word - I want to share these stories with people.”
Through her own event, she’s seen how effective a little fundraising can be - 90 percent of money raised by the Grandmothers group and sent to Africa goes to grassroots projects, straight to grandmothers in African countries to be used in those communities.
And money raised here goes a long way, she says.
“About $6 or $8 can buy a pair of shoes … so a child can actually go to school … It’s so small, the amount of money - the $1,800 we raised, think of how many pairs of shoes that would be.”
The three-day gathering finishes with a march of thousands to commemorate International Women’s Day.
After returning to Canada, conference attendees are expected to share their experiences and help raise awareness of the needs of African grandmothers and the work being done to change their lives and the lives of their grandchildren.
Information on the Stephen Lewis Foundation can be found at www.stephenlewisfoundation.org, where there is a page on the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign.