Tema Clinic in Accra, Ghana

Our sister organization ONE just returned from a listening and learning trip to Senegal, Ghana (a (RED) country), Mozambique and Kenya with members of their board and other supporters, including some (RED) staffers. Below is a post from (RED)'s own Don MacKinnon following a visit to the Tema clinic in Ghana which receives (RED) funds.

I have spent the past four years of my life telling a story. Last Thursday, I saw it come true.

Since I joined (RED) in 2006, I have sat in thousands of conference rooms with prospective and current (RED) partner companies, speaking with their sales and marketing teams, CSR groups and even retail employees. And for (RED)WIRE and (RED)NIGHTS, I have spoken with musicians, their managers and their labels. In all of these meetings, I tell them the story that Bono told me, the story that caused me to join (RED). This story is powerful because it is so simple and so concrete.
Not more than a few years ago, life-saving anti-retroviral (ARV) medication was too expensive to make widely available to the millions of people dying of AIDS in Africa. This meant that when a pregnant woman got tested and found out she was positive, it was merely a death sentence for both the mother and her child. That, and the intense stigmatization of HIV in local communities, was hardly an incentive to head to a clinic. Early on, the story almost never had a happy ending.

Then, through innovation and negotiation by many parties, the cost of ARVs was driven down so low that it became possible to make them widely available through grants by the Global Fund. Suddenly, there was hope. A woman could now not only receive ARV medication to save her own life, but also treatment to radically reduce the risk of HIV being transferred to her child. Happy endings became possible, and (RED)’s goal is to make as many of them happen as we can. Sales of (RED) products have driven contributions of over $140 million dollars to the Global Fund, of which $48 million has been directed to Ghana, where it helps to fund treatment delivered in regional health clinics across the country.
As I said, I’ve been telling the story of these women for years, but until this week, I’d never met them. That all changed on Thursday morning when, along with the delegation from ONE, I got to visit the Tema clinic in Accra, Ghana. Women are referred to this clinic from a radius of 50 kilometers to be tested, counseled and treated. Virtually all of the ARVs are funded by (RED) contributions that result from consumers purchasing (RED) products.
Dr. Patricia Mkansah Asamoah, who runs the clinic, ushered us into a room where we were able to sit and talk to the women (and the children) we’d been working for. As we sat with each one, they told us their story.
“Meg” had been abandoned by her partner when she became pregnant. Her aunt got her to go to her local clinic for prenatal care, and they referred her to Tema. The counselors at Tema give a presentation prior to testing the women, telling them that if they are positive, they can receive ARV treatment for their babies. Meg told us that before she heard this presentation, she had been unaware of the ARVs and even then, she didn’t really believe they worked until one of the counselors told her that she herself was HIV positive and was alive because of the ARVs.
In her arms was a beautiful sleeping boy. She had received the NPV treatment in time so the risk of HIV passing to him had gone from 30% to 4%. They won’t know for sure if he’s in the clear for another few months, but he sure looked wonderful and healthy when he woke up at the end of our session.
Sitting with these women and hearing their stories was an overwhelming experience for me because each of their stories was a very personal, very real version of the story we have been telling all these years to convince people to produce, market and buy the (RED) products – the very products that had helped fund the medicine that was enabling these women and their children to be here, speaking with us.
Sometimes an iPod is not just an iPod. It’s time to get back to work.