Why Kids Care?

We are all born with the instinct for charity. It develops in children like any muscle - with exercise. Kids Care Clubs help kids stretch their charity muscles. By helping others kids learn how wonderful it is to be contributing members of their communities. Beyond citizenship, kids can learn so many life-lessons from charity: cooperation, tolerance, problem-solving, communication, self-awareness, confidence, respect for life and loyalty. And research has shown that children who practice community service are less likely to participate in risky behaviors like youth violence or drug and alcohol abuse.

START YOUR OWN KIDS CARE GROUP!! ...There isn't much to know about getting started, just find some kids who want to help and invite them to brainstorm projects
Go to www.kidscare.org/kidscare/startclb.shtml and find out just how easy it is!

CARE's HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs

Since the late 1980s, CARE has fought against the spread of AIDS. From one project in 1987, the portfolio has grown to include 47 projects with HIV/AIDS components in 32 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. CARE's goal in responding to the AIDS pandemic is to empower local communities to protect themselves from HIV-infection and to mitigate the effect of the pandemic on community survival. Specific interventions are designed to address the varying needs of people at three different stages relative to HIV/AIDS -- those who are not infected with HIV, those who are HIV-positive and those who have AIDS. Because prevention is the most effective method of slowing the AIDS pandemic, CARE provides men and women with accurate information about transmission through community education programs and informal discussion groups, educational television and radio messages, and training community health promoters on preventing transmission.

HERE ARE SOME WAYS THAT YOU CAN HELP BY GETTING INVOLVED!!!
(www.careusa.org/getinvolved/index.asp)

At CARE, we believe that every person can make a difference, and together, we can change the world. Here are some of the ways you can take action with CARE:

Advocate with CARE:
By using your voice with the media and elected officials, you can help CARE raise awareness of important issues like reproductive health and HIV/AIDS.

Volunteer:
CARE Corps volunteers work alongside Peruvian families and CARE staff on projects that promote sustainable solutions to poverty.

Youth Activities:
CARE's youth programs offer high school students the opportunity to experience a foreign country and culture while learning about CARE's work to help communities overcome poverty.

CARE In Your Community:
Each of our 14 regional offices sponsors fund-raising events and plans community outreach projects to help poor communities solve their most threatening problems

What if 30 percent of your teachers had a deadly disease?
What if you could do something to help?

For many years, a culture of silence has surrounded the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Effective education and prevention campaigns have not been implemented to the extent required by the crisis. In too many African countries, teachers have been unable to break through the stigma associated with the disease. Now, more than ever, effective prevention programs are needed to help teachers in Africa understand how the HIV virus is transmitted, and how behavioral changes can reduce the growing rates of infection.

The AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign -- a multi-year, multi-country project -- provides African teachers with the resources and support they need to develop effective peer-education programs to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, along with counseling and care for those who are sick. Building on a long tradition of international professional and union collaboration, African teachers' unions and the AFT are acting as catalysts to create a self-sustaining network of trained HIV/AIDS peer-educators and counselors in African schools.

A Staggering Crisis: (South Africa)

- An average of 1,000 teachers a year are dying of AIDS
- 420,000 children have lost one or both parents to AIDS
- Half of today's 15-year-olds will die of AIDS in the
next 10 years.

In addition to developing teacher-training programs in Africa, the AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign is working to raise the funds needed to help our African teacher organizations expand their effective programs.

- Awareness-raising projects that can increase student
understanding of the AIDS epidemic.
- Classroom- or school-based activities that can increase
funding for the efforts in Africa.
- Links to organizations working on the AIDS crisis in
Africa.

What if We Could Do Something To Help?!?
...Well, you can help by purchasing the CAMPAIGN PIN - it really is pretty. :-) Take a look: www.aft.org/africa_aids/pins.html

Your contribution to the campaign will go directly for union initiatives to provide resources for HIV/AIDS education, teaching materials and supplies. The AFT, U.S. government agencies and private foundations are providing funding for other program expenses.

AFT's website is:
http://www.aft.org/africa_aids/overview.html

Well, i'm not sure where you've been hiding if this is the case, but here are some interesting facts that may hit closer to home...

The first case of AIDS in Canada was reported in 1982.

Up to June 30, 1998, 15,935 AIDS cases have been reported to the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control at Health Canada.

The total number of AIDS cases in Canada since the epidemic began is estimated at 20,000.

Although the number of AIDS cases in Canada is dropping, the number of reported HIV infections is again on the rise. To date, an estimated 54,000 Canadians have become infected with HIV. Every day, about a dozen more become infected.

From 1982 to 1990, the median age for testing positive dropped from 32 to 23. All statistics from Health Canada, Bureau of HIV-AIDS http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/aids.htm

For More Information:
1-800-563-CURE OR cure@canfar.com