Ronald V. Dellums
Former U.S. Congressman (D), California
President, Healthcare International Management Company
Chair, Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS
Chair, Constituency for Africa
“We have to talk about HIV/AIDS as a global pandemic that requires a global strategy in which the United States should be an integral, significant component. This is the human family that must mobilize globally to address this problem.
“AIDS activism must move beyond the confines of community in the United States. We have to participate in shaping the total approach—the comprehensive approach to dealing with this problem. That’s the advocacy that we need to see.”
Cleve Jones
Founder, The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt
Author, Stitching a Revolution: The Making of an Activist (HarperSanFrancisco, 2000)
“The most crucial challenge facing AIDS activists today is to truly globalize the struggle so that we can truly speak for and fight for all people living with AIDS.
This challenge underscores the true lesson of the epidemic—we are all connected. That is not liberal rhetoric.What happens in a small village in central Africa or a gay ghetto in North America or a slum in São Paulo is irrevocably linked.We must always have that awareness at the front of our efforts.”
Mpule Kwelagobe
Miss Universe® 1999
Founder, Mpule Kwelagobe’s Children’s Village, Botswana
“Activism is about actions speaking louder than words—acting on what you feel passionate about.
“We should all stop pointing fingers and saying, ‘Well, it’s your fault.’ We should acknowledge that it is a problem, a universal crisis, an emergency, and we should do something about it.
“The war against HIV/AIDS will be won if we all just put our differences aside—culture, religion, ethnicity—and decide we are going to fight this as a global village. Then this is something we can win.”
Daniel C. Montoya
Executive Director, Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS
“AIDS activism needs to take on a global and human rights context. How can people rank healthcare on a scale of importance when they are trying to get basics like food, water, housing, and education? Anything we do in this country needs to be done from a standpoint of how it is going to benefit those in other countries—whether it is a model or a program to be replicated, or an initiative to get funding started or people involved.”
Pernessa Seele
CEO, The Balm in Gilead
“We have to fight for the resources to address this epidemic, globally and here at home. So many people in Africa must die because we didn’t put our focus, our energies, our monies there twenty years ago.
In the African American community, the epidemic did not have to be as it is today. We had the data that AIDS would be exactly where it is, and we did nothing.
We must continue, in this country, to focus on helping America understand that AIDS is not over;
it is still out of control in our communities, here at home and throughout the global village.”
