BOP 2006 > Still Photography Winners > International News Picture Story
- 2nd Place
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AIDS and faith in Zimbabwe
In Zimbabwe the combination of extreme poverty and state-sponsored human rights violations adds incalculable strain and peril to the daily existence of those infected with HIV. Though medication is sometimes available, AIDS sufferers in need of treatment face a nearly insurmountable hurdle: paying for them. The result is a brutal choice: buying food for their families, or buying drugs to remain alive. Thus abandoned by authorities who view them as more suspect than sympathetic; poor and with medicine out of reach, it is the spirit that must carry them. This is not to say that Zimbabwe’s HIV population finds answers in god, but religion and its customs do bring some measure of comfort. Coming together as a Community, with others likewise trapped by poverty and illness, is antidote to one of AIDS’ tragic side effects— loneliness.
Godfrey, 32 yrs, too sick to work, survives through donations from friends and family. His relatives are unable to afford the Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs required to keep him alive. Seventy percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed. Mbare, Harare, Zimbabwe. April 2005
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