Canada: Area Grandmothers Help Ease African AIDS Plight

A contingent of Canadian grandmothers is heading to Africa this Saturday on an educational visit to communities coping with HIV/AIDS. Organized by the Stephen Lewis Foundation, the Canadians will show their solidarity with African grandmothers who are raising AIDS orphans.

"I think I'm getting more raging as I get older," said Sue Cousineau, 63, one of 12 Canadian grandmothers who will spend two and half weeks visiting grandmothers affected by AIDS in Uganda, South Africa, and Swaziland.

Across Canada, more than 5,000 people have joined a grandmothers' movement to support grandmothers in Africa, raising over $2 million (US $1.98 million). There are an estimated 13 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, and up to 60 percent live in grandmother-headed households.

"We're told we're ambassadors for all the grandmothers in Canada. To me, that feels huge," said Joan Turner, 71, whose Unitarian Go Gos group has raised about $6,500 (US $6,425) for African grandmothers. "It just seemed to me like an amazing opportunity at this time in my life," said Turner, a retired social worker who has never been to Africa.

In Swaziland, the group will march with 1,000 women on March 8, International Women's Day. After the women return to Canada on March 11, they will tour the nation to inform others about the grandmothers they met in Africa. "If we can get more people contributing to the issues of HIV and AIDS and certainly the grandmothers, then that's our goal," Cousineau said.

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