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SOURCE: The Daily Tar Heel
12.05.06
WSSU students attack AIDS in Africa
By: Sara Beth Lankford, Staff Writer
Students and faculty at Winston-Salem State University are setting out for Africa today to help serve a country where an estimated 28.9 percent of the population has HIV/AIDS.
A group of six people from WSSU - three faculty members and three students - will travel to Lesotho, an independent country located inside the territorial boundaries of South Africa.
The delegation will participate in service projects and attend conferences.
"Each student and faculty member will make a presentation at three conferences, which are HIV in youth, (HIV in) clergy and HIV in leadership-development opportunity," said Peggy Valentine, dean of the School of Health Sciences at WSSU.
"This is a wonderful opportunity to expand WSSU's capacity to reach out into the community and provide service."
The group of six left Monday for Washington, D.C., to attend a reception at the Lesotho embassy hosted by the country's ambassador to the United States.
At the embassy the six will join the rest of the delegation - a total of about three dozen people will make the trip, including U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.
The delegation will fly direct from Washington, D.C., to Johannesburg, South Africa - a 14-hour flight.
The Lesotho Experience Through Service program, sponsored by the Ariel Foundation International, is organizing the trip as part of the foundation's work in international health and public policy.
"There are about 35 people going - 10 of which are students, and the largest group is from WSSU," said Ariel King, president of the Ariel Consulting International Inc., and director of the LETS program.
"The Ariel Foundation specifically looks at developing countries, as well as children and youth - but mostly our focus is children and youth."
Valentine collected donations, including 17 sets of twin sheets, which will be distributed in Lesotho to children orphaned by AIDS and disabled children.
"Many of these children don't have any sheets, and those that do have sheets, they're just shreds," she said.
Educational supplies, such as pencils, paper and small notebooks, also were collected.
King said she is confident the group will establish a meaningful partnership between the delegation and Lesotho.
"The Lesotho people and the American people have been working on this together for over a year."
She said it is increasingly important to have partnerships with other countries.
"HIV/AIDS in Lesotho is not just HIV/AIDS in Lesotho," she said. "We are now a generation that doesn't just live in our own country - we are all interlinked and what happens in Lesotho affects America."
"We are all interrelated and interaffected by this disease."
Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.
