Editor’s note: This is the seventh installment of a series of columns by deacons of the diocese addressing the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals.

By Deacon Linda Barley

Writing this article brought back memories from my nursing practice in the 1980s. A new disease with a known mortality rate of 100 percent was occurring and a life expectancy of 10 or less years from the time of  the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS.

  I recognize that by 2007 progress has been made in our nation and other countries as well. We identified the ways that HIV/AIDS is transmitted, developed drugs and treatments that slowed disease progress, provided education on the prevention of AIDS and made early testing for HIV available. Federal and state governments in our country responded to expand medical treatment and financial assistance for treatment of individuals. Communities and churches responded with support groups for individuals with HIV/AIDS.

 However, there is such a different image of the impact made by AIDS on populations in emerging countries where financial ability and systems for response are more limited. Information obtained through the World Health Organization reported that more that 25 million adults and children were living with HIV in Africa. For this group the life expectancy averaged 47 years or less, and over 12 million children became orphans by the end of 2006.

Somehow the numbers become mind boggling to me as I remembered caring for patients with AIDS, and  families and friends impacted by the progression of the disease. I found myself becoming both angry and saddened by information that I was reading. Angry that resources we have developed aren’t as available to areas with such need and saddened by thoughts of children, families and countries wounded by this epidemic. A call to respond resonates not only for me but for all who are called to mercy and justice and to care for God’s people.

So, how do we respond?

Work is already begun through ERD initiatives and in some communites through partnering with groups in countries to provide support. ERD is supporting many activities in emerging countries to assist with the development of programs that care and support children orphaned by AIDS, provide better care for persons with AIDS, reduce the spread of AIDS through education and provide ways to lower exposure to the HIV virus. 

AIDS is one of the diseases that this Millennium Development Goal No. 6 addresses. Action is also directed at reducing the occurrence of hepatitis and malaria.

The question that I ask is simple. How does each of us find a way to understand and to become involved in this or other Millennium Goal activities?

I would ask that you seek information through Episcopal Relief and Development or through resources in the diocese or your parish, and then become involved in the progress toward meeting the goals set for 2015 by the United Nations. At the start of the new millennium, leaders from 191 nations, including the United States, agreed on a plan to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015. Together, they created the eight Millennium Development Goals.

Working together we can have an impact in reducing prevalence of targeted diseases and improve the quality of life for many children and adults.

Resources: United Nations Millennium Goals, World Health Statistics, Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) literature, 2006 progress report, Millennium Development Goals.

— Deacon Linda Barley is currently assigned to the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Clearwater.