AFRO-NETS> AIDS-Orphans Whitepaper: call for floppy distribution

["Dr. S. Jarchow" <sjarchow@zmml.uni-bremen.de>]

AIDS-Orphans Whitepaper: call for floppy distribution
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http://wohcraj.free.fr/aids-orphans/

AIDS-Orphans Whitepaper
Role of the General Public 


* Editorial Notes 

Alone at home planting apple trees 

"Alone and frightened" were the words of Ugandan singer Philly Bongo-
ley Lutaya, the first African public figure to have spoken openly 
about having AIDS. "Alone at home planting trees" this is how a Thai 
girl, Phrae, pictured herself. Neither adults nor children affected 
by AIDS should be left alone in the struggle against this disease. 

With this AIDS-Orphans Whitepaper, the reader will discover a broad 
spectrum of contributions, reports and children messages that will 
help to examine the definitions, the situations, the needs of AIDS 
orphans and most importantly their heart-breaking dreams: "When I 
grow up, I want to lecture to more and more people about AIDS" said 
Nkosi Johnson in a speech broadcasted life around the globe (Interna-
tional AIDS conference, Durban, 2000). 

At the beginning of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, in the late 70's and early 
80's, the direct sufferers were mostly adults. More and more children 
became affected by the loss of one or both of the parents due to 
HIV/AIDS and the stigma still related to the disease, and mother-to-
child transmissions have left many children growing up already in-
fected with the virus. 

The general public has started to express their concern and their 
genuine desire to take more responsibilities with regard to this 
still deadly disease and its impact on our children and those of fu-
ture generations. The call for contributions placed an emphasis on 
the role that the general public could play to help the more than 13 
million AIDS orphans world-wide. While the positive response to this 
invitation gives space for hope, the reader will have a glimpse at 
the complexity of this issue. 

I wish to express my special thanks to the readers who will make 
print-donations of this whitepaper to public libraries so that it be-
comes a paper-based resource for higher education students, to those 
who have helped with the preparation, announcement, review, edition 
and distribution of this whitepaper, to all the contributors for 
their commitment in the battle against this disease, for their shar-
ing of information, experiences, ideas and time, and to the children 
orphaned by AIDS for their drawings and for having expressed some of 
their dreams. 


* Floppy and Print Donations 

- Reaching out remote public libraries with floppy donations 

There is a steadily growing number of libraries in rural areas that 
are equipped with computers capable of previewing papers or books 
saved in PDF format, although they are not yet linked to the Inter-
net. To address the needs of remote public libraries, we have edited 
a floppy edition of the AIDS-Orphans Whitepaper that contains all 
children's drawings with a reasonable graphic resolution and color 
reduction. 

Meanwhile a world-wide boom in Internet cafés to serve the Internet 
needs of mass-tourism has brought the Internet within a reasonable 
distance from almost any remote public library. Indeed many persons 
are offline connected to the Internet via the exchange of files by 
floppy disks (sometimes called sneakernet). 

If you travel near a remote public library during your vacations, 
during a business trip, during a field work or a conference, by 
downloading a floppy edition of the AIDS-Orphans Whitepaper, saving 
it on an empty floppy and donating this floppy to a remote public li-
brary, you will help raise awareness on the situation of the children 
orphaned by AIDS. 


- Raising awareness among students in higher education with paper-
based reprint donations 

By donating a paper-based reprint of the AIDS-Orphans Whitepaper to a 
university or public library you will help increasing the awareness 
of students on the situation of children affected by HIV/AIDS. 

University or public libraries have access to print-on-demand ser-
vices to produce a small number of copies and to bind them. In some 
countries you may benefit from tax incentives for making a print-
donation. 

Your print-donation(s) will help to motivate more authors to study, 
to publish and to write grants regarding aspects affecting AIDS or-
phans. 

Thank you for your support,

Dr. rer. nat. Silvia Jarchow, Dipl.-Chem. 
Editor of the AIDS-Orphans Whitepaper 
mailto:sjarchow@zmml.uni-bremen.de
http://eoi.cordis.lu/dsp_details.cfm?ID=36425

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