From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

HIV, AIDS, AND OTHER HEALTH RISKSPrudence Mabele is a party animal. Scrambling onto the stage at aJohannesburg jazz club, her long dreadlocks carve through the air asshe dances. Earlier she’d hustled a table in a crowded restaurant and afree concert ticket for a friend. She never stops networking, but usuallydirects her boundless energy to more lofty ends. She runs PositiveWomen’s Network, a South African NGO that helps women livingwith HIV to lead full and active lives. Prudence has been HIV-positivefor the past 17 years.However, Prudence faces an uphill task in a country where anestimated 1,000 people die every day from AIDS, and HIV infectionrates are still rising due to a combination of poverty, stigma, migration,illiteracy, and mixed messages from a deeply divided government.The health of poor people is subject to daily attrition from dirtywater, malnourishment, and a lack of basic health services. At thehousehold level, illness can be a ‘shock’that sends a family into a spiral ofimpoverishment. Bouts of sickness, especially in childhood, can havelife-long impacts in terms of chronic ill health, stunting, and pooreducational performance. The best guarantor of security against suchharrowing experiences is a functioning health service – a form ofmedical social protection, discussed more fully in Part 2. When healthshocks occur at the societal level, in the form of a disease epidemic,they can set development efforts back decades. From at least the time231