Home » Star-Studded AIDS 2018, Launch of Billion Dollar Project for Men in Africa

Star-Studded AIDS 2018, Launch of Billion Dollar Project for Men in Africa

AMSTERDAM – South African Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron joined Britain’s Prince Harry and singer Elton John in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, for the 22nd International AIDS Conference. Theron spoke about the need to identify what’s driving HIV infections, while Elton and Harry launched a billion dollar project targeting men in sub-Saharan Africa. The 42-year-old SA expat […]

By Jenni Baxter
24-07-18 19:53
in Fab South African Stuff

AMSTERDAM – South African Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron joined Britain’s Prince Harry and singer Elton John in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, for the 22nd International AIDS Conference. Theron spoke about the need to identify what’s driving HIV infections, while Elton and Harry launched a billion dollar project targeting men in sub-Saharan Africa.

The 42-year-old SA expat spoke passionately about the impact of AIDS on Africa, of which she has first hand experience with her Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, which helps people in South Africa suffering from the effects of HIV on the community.

Talking with young people at a special youth section of the conference, Theron said: “#Amsterdam is a beacon of openness and acceptance in a world that feels more and more consumed by isolation.”

She said: “We have come a long way as a global community from that moral panic that defined early stages of this epidemic.”

Theron said she stands by what she said at the AIDS Conference in SA last year – when she said the virus was fuelled in Africa by “sexism, poverty and homophobia”.

Today Theron said: “Most of us now know and understand that HIV is not just about sex or sexuality. We know it is linked to the second-class status of women and girls worldwide.”

She said it’s important to look at why people are getting infected, “at the factors that are driving it”.

In May Charlize was honoured with the Swarovski Crystal of Hope award for the years of service she has given to campaigning for HIV/AIDS awareness.

Joining Theron in Amsterdam is Britain’s Prince Harry and pop star Elton John, who on Tuesday launched a campaign to raise HIV awareness amongst men, warning that “dangerous complacency” about the virus threatened the quest to wipe it out.

The billion-dollar project “MenStar” will target men living with or at risk of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, which has been ravaged by AIDS since the 1980s.

Speaking at the launch, which also featured Ndaba Mandela, the grandson of late President Nelson Mandela, Elton John said: “If we want to end AIDS once and for all, we must make men part of the solution.”

Prince Harry said: “The MenStar coalition is bravely tackling the root cause of this problem — the lack of awareness of HIV prevention amongst hard-to-reach young men.”

Around 36.7 million people around the world have HIV, according to 2016 figures cited by the United Nations’ HIV/AIDS body UNAIDS. Fewer than half of men living with HIV receive treatment compared with 60 percent of women, it said.

“It is time there was a global coalition to teach men to protect themselves. And in doing so, it will teach them to better protect not only their wives and girlfriends, their sisters and daughters, but also, critically, their brothers and their sons,” the British singer said.

UNAIDS said this month that the fight against HIV/AIDS was “slipping off track” and while deaths were falling and treatment rates rising, rates of new HIV infections threatened to derail efforts to defeat the disease.

Prince Harry said the campaign launch came at “a time when new energetic and innovative solutions are needed more than ever before”.

Experts at the conference hope for the elimination of AIDS worldwide by 2030, but the United Nations warned last Wednesday of a funding gap of £4.6 billion that threatens efforts.

(Reporting by Verity Crane/Reuters; Writing by Anthony Deutsch/Reuters and Jenni Baxter/SAPeople; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Jenni Baxter)