PLEBAns please help me!!! Bono quotes on Africa needed!!!

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Merc

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PLEBAns, I really need your help please!!! :bow:


I'm working with the national YMCA/YWCA "International Project" and for the next years we are focusing on HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa with our project - "Break The Silence"

Break.bmp


We are working together with the YWCA in Namibia and is supporting their 'peer counselling' programme.

But part of the project is also information about HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa to the young members of the Danish YMCA/YWCA - and this is where I need you help! :wink:


I need all the Bono-quotes on HIV/AIDS in Africa you can possibly find!!!
Please, also post the source from where you got the quote - if you know!

Thanks in advance! :hug:
 
heres some:wink:


"We're not here today for a victory lap; we're here to pick up the pace. Because AIDS is outrunning us,"

"Eight million people die every year for the price of going out with your friends to the movies and buying an ice cream. Literally for about $30 a head per year, you could save 8 million lives. Isn't that extraordinary? Preventable disease - not calamity, not famine, nothing like that. Preventable disease - just for the lack of medicines. That is cheap, that is a bargain."
 
"But you know what's amazing? Everywhere I go, I see very much the same thing. I see the same compassion for people who live half a world away. I see the same concern about events beyond these borders. And, increasingly, I see the same conviction that we can and we must join together to stop the scourge of AIDS and poverty."


"Imagine if a third of the kids at your local primary school were AIDS orphans. That's a reality in Africa where the parents of 13 million children have been killed by AIDS."

"I was jumping up and down. The president deserves a lot of credit for that. He really stuck his neck out. He was right, it's important the people know at this time what America is for as well as what America's against." on George Bush's announcement of increased AIDS funding for Africa

"I'm confident that President Bush has a real feeling for the AIDS pandemic. Essentially, what we're asking for is a kind of Marshall Plan for Africa."

:wink:
 
"Part of winning the war on terrorism is winning the war on poverty. We've had the wake-up call. If we stand by and watch [Africa] go up in flames, the price won't be paid solely in African lives." -- Bono, February 1, 2002

from www.globalaidsalliance.org
 
THis is pretty interesting...not sure if it will help you or not..but I will post anyway:wink:

The Heartland of America Tour - Day 4 - In Church with Bono
Read Bono's American Prayer delivered at Wheaton College

December 4, 2002
Chicago, Illinois

Bono speaks to the press.White poinsettias with red ribbons marking Christmas dotted the prayer rails of the Apostolic Faith Church of Bishop Horace Smith, MD and pastor of this large, urban predominately African American church on the south side of Chicago. Light snow was falling against the stained glass cross which served as the backdrop for Bono's first stop in Chicago, his third city on an eight day tour designed to raise awareness for HIV/AIDS in Africa. The urban parish stop was organized by World Vision's Metro with Reverend George E. Wilson, Executive Director of U.S. Programs, Metro Chicago and his team in South Chicago.

Over 200 people representing churches, nonprofits and HIV/AIDS organizations joined together to welcome Bono, Chris Tucker, Ashley Judd and Agnes to speak to the African American church leadership about engaging the church on AIDS in Africa. Men dressed in heavy overcoats and ladies in high fashion boots and hats checked their purses and coats at the door and brought their hearts and prayers to hear the message of Bishop Smith, Reverend George Wilson and the Bono team challenge the African American church to stand up and be counted on the AIDS issue.

Tears were flowing today in Chicago's Apostolic Faith Church when actress Ashley Judd and actor Chris Tucker both broke into tears as Agnes Nyanayarvo of Uganda once again told her story about her experience with HIV/AIDS. Agnes has been in America for less than a week and on the tour speaking publicly to Americans about her HIV/AIDS and that of her family's for four days.

AgnesAgnes is the heart in the Heart of America Tour. Bono reminds everyone, everywhere he goes, that the true heroine of the tour is not the rock stars and actors and actresses or politicians; no, it is Agnes with her brown eyes and quiet, steady presence with a message that grows louder with each stop on the tour. It is as if Agnes has found her cadence, the rhythm that lets her repeat the painful truth of death and AIDS in her own family. Her conviction that breaking the silence and stigma of AIDS is the path she must take; it is divinely inspired she says and her only way of fighting back. Agnes often says she has come to America to tell the American people about AIDS – nothing can impact and tear at your heart the way Agnes' story does. Loss is a way of life, grief the ghost that hovers over her story and is woven throughout the tale of death and life, of sickness and healing.

Judd and Tucker weren't acting this time. Judd struggled to compose herself enough to step into her customary role as Mistress of Ceremonies. Today, there were no more words only tears, "I can't do this. I can't hear Agnes' story one more time. It is all catching up to me, it is so painful." Her angular face turned to Agnes with immense sadness and a haunted look of compassion; a moment later, her tear stained cheeks turned to Bono, "I'm sorry, it just hurts too much," she said as Bono's arm gingerly touched Judd's shoulder offering her the healing space of a big brother protecting his baby sister."

Chris Tucker is deeply loved in Chicago and the connector, along with Agnes in this audience. He traveled to Africa with Bono on his recent trip with U.S. Secretary of Treasury O'Neill. "When I went to Africa with Bono and the Secretary, it blew me away. Being African American and seeing my family there – folks who looked like my father, my mother, my uncles, aunts and cousins, even my own son. I knew what they were facing just to get clean water; there was one well in each village. I'll never forget it."

Then Tucker too broke into tears. His face looked straight into the audience while people in the pews called out, "Say it brother. It is ok, say it."

"I don't know how Agnes has overcome this, her strength is overwhelming to me. I don't think I could do it. I just don't. God is inside of her. God is inside of this house. Look around. Bishop Smith knows my bishop in L.A. We are all connected in this AIDS crisis. Pray for us, all of us that we are guided the right way and doing the thing of the Holy Spirit," Tucker said in a halting voice as tears again ran down his cheeks. "I'll never forget," he repeated as he handed Bono the microphone.

Bono turns to Senator Durbin and motions for the Senator to speak. "The most important people in Chicago are in this room Bono. I don't know how you did it but the folks here can change the world." Senator Durbin continues, " There often comes a moment in a famous person's life – rock starts, actors, when they wake up and suddenly realize meaning has gone from their lives. They get a cause; they come to Washington, usually only once and then they go away. But this guy Bono, I call him the pest on Capitol Hill who just won't go away. I say that with love."

Cameras flashed, aides pulled on Bono's sleeves indicating it was time to move on. "I can't go," Bono said, "Without telling you that Chris Tucker had the entire Editorial Board of the Chicago Tribune holding hands and praying about AIDS in Africa."

"If you guys can get the Tribune to hold hands and pray, you can do anything," Senator Durbin said chiding his friends.

The two-hour forum ended with Bishop Horace Smith leading the assembled in prayer for the brothers and sisters in Africa. "If we don't respond to the children dying of AIDS in Africa, then we are not the church we should be." I want to thank World Vision for bringing us together today and for doing the wonderful work they do in our community."

Photos snapped, cameras rolling, Agnes and Chris holding hands with Reverend George Wilson and Bishop Smith – Bono raises his arm in the sky and folds them like a church overhead. Flash and he is led away by the handlers to his next stop. He takes off his hat and waves it as he walks, ears cocked to those trying to shake his hand and get a word in edgewise with the world's most famous rock star. "Could it be," one woman said," that he is so real?"




December 4, 2002 - pm
Wheaton, Illinois
Bono's American Prayer

"The AIDS pandemic is the worst epidemic humanity has witnessed in 600 years,"
Dr. Kim, Harvard University doctor on tour with Bono


"I believe God is on his knees to the church, to us, to act and turn around the supertanker of indifference. God Almighty is on his knees to the Church. How do I know? Because the gospels are filled with verses about the poorest of the pooR. Christ talks about the poor in Matthew 25. "I was naked and you clothed me. I was a stranger and you let me in."
Bono to 2,400 college students at Wheaton College.


"The costs of treating AIDS patients are $2.5 billion dollars, the equivalent of the price of a movie and popcorn for every single American. A continent is about to come down."
Dr. Kim, Harvard University

If you leave a Bono Heart of America Tour early, you'll come to regret it. As if tying the knot on the Christmas gift we all wanted, Bono harkens to the poetry of America and the ideal of justice and equality for all, with a newly evolving song entitled American Prayer. Those of us on the road with Bono know this secret and wait expectantly till the end for what is really the beginning of his plea to the world to follow the moral and biblical imperative to stop the hemorrhaging of humanity in sub Sahara Africa from the AIDS emergency.

Bono's Heart of America Tour tore the roof of the house of Edman Auditorium at Wheaton College in America's midwestern town of Wheaton, Illinois. The Christian college, famous for its graduates including Billy Graham and Todd and Lisa Beamer, was the site of a powerful biblically-based appeal to students to engage in the AIDS issue. With each stop along the tour, Bono is fueling the fires of a student movement that, he hopes, will be on par with the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. "This is your civil rights movement and your moment in history," he tells the 2,400 students assembled in an ornately decorated hall complete with chandeliers dangling and a pipe organ glistening on stage.

He warned the mostly Christian audience: "Our discussion may divide some of us tonight. Why? Because I believe that if the Church doesn't respond that it will become a largely irrelevant body that preaches Love Thy Neighbor and does nothing. It will be the salt left on the side of a plate. Will you sound the alarm church, will you?"

Shocking statistics dramatically shift the mood in the auditorium once the glow of seeing Bono wears off. The reality of his message on AIDS sinks into a group of young people familiar with Matthew 25 in the Bible calling Christians to feed the hungry, cloth the poor and minister to the sick and dying.

"Six thousand five hundred people died today, and will die tomorrow and the day after, not taking a break for the Christmas holidays – they died of AIDS," began Ashley Judd as she took to the stage. 2.5 million Africans are going to die because they can't get access to treatment drugs for AIDS.

Bono knows his MTV audience and understands the emotional terrain of 18-25 year olds; they are after all, his fan base. He has choreographed a perfect appeal to what he considers an emergency of spirit, of morality and of humanity. The blending of prayer, gospel quotes, African music, HIV/AIDS testimony by Agnes and star power comprise the elixir that he hopes stirs the emotions and political impulses of young people to fight injustice and shape opinion on Capitol Hill in America to support increased government funding HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs.

Day after day, site after site, Bono allows for God-filled moments that he hopes will stimulate massive political action like that of Vietnam War protests and Civil Rights Movements (he often quotes Martin Luther King). Write the President, call the White House, email your Congressional delegation and let them know America's sense of decency demands that the U.S. share its wealth and life raft of treatment and AIDS drugs for those in poverty stricken sub Sahara Africa.

Research demonstrates that without treatment, there is little likelihood of testing working. Why test if it is really nothing short of a death sentence. In Haiti, Dr. Kim of Harvard, noted that as soon as his clinic offered treatment, the testing sites were overwhelmed and the stigma associated with AIDS was gone. Prior to therapy, there was no reason to find you if you had AIDS. Before and after pictures were flashed on a screen that demonstrated the Lazarus effect of AIDS drugs. Picture after picture showed near death bodies before the drugs and the same people three months after, often having returned to work.

Sounding the clarion call to save Africa's children from AIDS is the 4-year-old Dominique of the Gateway Ambassadors, the Ghanaian choir traveling with Bono. "What about our little Dominique they ask into the microphone? Save Africa from AIDS, America, the troupe sings in unison.

Bono, who has been tapping his feet to the rhythm of African drumbeats, raises himself off the chair, reaches for his guitar bringing the audience to their feet as they wait in anticipation hearing his famous voice. Instead, he turns to his left and signals for the youngest boy member of the troupe to come forward and say a prayer. In a rapid fire voice that builds to a crescendo, the boy asks Jesus Christ to help the people of Africa who suffer from AIDS and with wisdom far beyond his years, he prays that America will help his people, all in the name of the Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ. A perfect prelude to Bono's newest song, American Prayer.

"This is the time to finish what you started.
This is no time to dream.
This is the room. We can turn off the dark tonight. Maybe we can see.

This is my American Prayer, American Prayer.

This is the land.
The land that keeps your feet from getting wet.
And this is the sky over our head.
Remember that what you see depends on where you stand.
And how you jump will tell you where you're gonna land.

This is my American Prayer. American Prayer.

My oh my, let's not get tired.
Let's not kick at the darkness.
Let's make the light brighter.

These are the hands
What are we going to build with them?
This is a church you can't see.

Give me your tired and poor and huddled masses.
You know they're yearning to breathe free."

www.worldvision.org
 
This is a big, long meaty mofo of a speech!
It's the first thing you will see on my website and it does take a lot of careful reading and understanding. As it's something I am very concerned about for those of you who know me this is why i have chose to post it.

The source :- www.ted.com



"I should probably explain why and how I got to this place. it’s a journey that started 20 years ago. You may remember that song “We are the World” or “Do They Know Its Christmas?“- Band aid and Live Aid. Another very tall, grizzled rock star- my friend Sir Bob Geldof issued a challenge to “Feed The World.” It was a great moment and it utterly changed my life.

That summer, my wife Ali and myself went to Ethiopia. We went on the quiet to see for ourselves what was going on . We lived in Ethiopia for a month, working in an orphanage. The children had a name for me, they called me “the girl with the beard”- don’t ask. Anyway, we found Africa to be a magical place. Big skies, big hearts, big shining continent, beautiful royal people. Anybody who ever gave anything to Africa got a lot more back. Ethiopia didn’t just blow my mind it opened my mind. Anyway, on our last day at this orphanage, a man handed me his baby and said, “would you take my son with you?” He knew in Ireland his son would live and that in Ethiopia, his son would die in the middle of an orphan famine. Well, I turned him down, and it was a funny kind of sick feeling. And it’s a feeling I cant ever quite forget. And in that moment I started this journey. In that moment I became the worst thing of all. I became a rock star, with a cause.

Except this isn’t a cause….is it? Six and a half thousand Africans dying , every single day, from AIDS, a preventable, treatable disease, for the lack of drugs we can get in any pharmacy is not a cause…is it? No….that’s an emergency. 11 million AIDS orphans in Africa, 20 million by the end of the decade, that’s not a cause…that’s an emergency. Today, every day, 9 thousand more Africans will catch HIV, because of stigmatisation and lack of education, that’s not a cause…that’s an emergency. So what were talking about here is human rights. The right to live like a human. The right to live the period. What were facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality. The next thing I’d like to be clear about is what this problem is and what this problem isn’t. This is not all about charity, this is about justice. Really, this is not about charity, this is about justice. An thats too bad because were very good at charity, Americans, like Irish people are good at it. Even the poorest neighbourhoods give more than they can afford, we like to give and we give a lot. Look at the response to the Tsunami, its inspiring. But justice is a tougher standard than charity, you see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice, it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pioneering , it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment because there is no way we can look at what’s happening in Africa and if were honest conclude, that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Not here, not here, not in America, not in Europe, in fact a head of state that you are all familiar with admitted this to me. There is no chance this kind of haemorrhaging of human life would be accepted anywhere else other than Africa. Africa, is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accept it, that Africans are equal to us we would all do more to put the fire out. Were standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade. That’s what im trying to do tonight really, that’s why im speaking to you, im trying to call the fire brigade. Im asking for your help, im an Irish rock star in America, I love this country, I know my way around, but, I really need help here. This stuff isn’t even on the news. You see, its not as dramatic as the tsunami, its crazy really, if you think about it, does stuff have to look like an action movie these days to exist in the front of our brain. The slow extinguishing of countless lives is just not dramatic enough it would appear. Catastrophes that we can overt are not as interesting as ones we could overt. Funny that. Anyway, I believe that that kind of thinking offends the intellectual rigour in this room. 6,500 people dying a day in Africa maybe Africa’s crisis but the fact that its not on the nightly news, that we in Europe or you in America are not treating this like an emergency, I want to argue with you tonight that that’s our crisis. O.k I’d like to hard cut now from the moral imperative to the strategic. Because this is not all about heart we have to be smart here. I want to argue, that though Africa is not on the frontline in the war against terror- it could be soon. Every week religious extremists take another African village they’re attempting to bring order to chaos, well why aren’t we? Poverty breeds despair, we know this…despair breeds violence, we know this. In turbulent times isn’t it cheaper, and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies and defend yourself against the later- you might clap at that actually, I think that’s the point I’m trying to make here, isn’t it cheaper and smarter to, you know, make friends out of potential enemies, then defend yourself against them later? Well, the war against terror is bound up, than the war against poverty, and I didn’t say that. Colen Powell said that, now when the military are telling us that this is a war that can not be won by villagry mite alone, maybe we should listen, there’s an opportunity here, and its real its not spin, its not wishful thinking. The problems facing the developing world are, afford us in the developed world, a chance to re-describe ourselves to the world. We will not only transform other peoples lives we will change the way those other lives see us. That might be smart in these nervous, dangerous times. Ok, I’d like to, talk for a second about commerce, I know we’ve got some brainy corporate leaders in the room, don’t you think, that on a purely commercial level, that anti-retroviral rogues are great advertisements for western ingenuity and technology? Doesn’t compassion look well on us? Now, lets cut the crap for a second, in certain quarters of the world. Brand E.U brand USA, is not at its shiniest that the young sign is fizzing and cracking. Someones put a brick through the window, the regional branch managers are getting nervous. Never before, have we in the west been so scrutinized, our values, do we have any? Our credibility. These things are under attack, around the world. Brand USA could use some polishing , and I say that as a fan, you know, as a person who buys bthe products. But think about it, more anti-retrovirals, it makes sense. But that’s just the easy part , or ought to be. But, equality for Africa, that’s a big, expensive idea. You see the scale of the suffering numbs us into a kind of indifference. What on earth can we all do about this? Well, much more than we think, we cant fix every problem but the ones we can, I want to argue we must, and because we can, we must. This is the straight truth, the righteous truth it is not a theory, the fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa and say this and mean it., we do not have to stand for this, a whole continent written off, we do not have to stand for this. History like, God, is watching what we do. When the history books get written I think our age will be remembered for three things, really its just three things this whole age will be remembered for, the digital revolution, yes. The war against terror, yes. And what we did or did not do to put out the fires in Africa. Some say we cant afford to, I say we cant afford not to. Thank You."
 
WOW!!!:sad: Thank you Bono-gal and Dis!!!! These are wonderful:up: Bono will always be my hero:sad:
 
Carmelu2fan said:
WOW!!!:sad: Thank you Bono-gal and Dis!!!! These are wonderful:up: Bono will always be my hero:sad:

The topic is saddening, but i think it inspires you to do something about the situation. It inspired me anyway!

I beleive in all of the things Bono and the other campaigners say, and i think that their strategies towards fighting the battle of povert and AIDS are very tactical and clever.

www.makepovertyhistory.org
 
:bump:


Thank you so much Dis and bg :bow:, but there must be more qoutes out there, ladies? Please? Anyone? :)
 
'On trade, our hypocrisy is at its most appalling. Trade reform isn't about charity, it's about justice, and this campaign, Trade Justice is an unstoppable idea. Your fan, Bono.'
Bono, November 2003

'The Trade Justice Movement have got it right. It wouldn't cost too much to change the rules of trade so that poor countries can work their way out of poverty. But the world's leaders won't act unless they hear enough people telling them. And every day they fail to act, thousands of people die because they can't afford the basics of survival.'
Bono

www.christianaid.org.uk/campaign/resource/quotes.htm

:wink:
 
Bono: I was very humbled to find out that the less time I spent in the studio, the better the music seemed to get! The band is really supportive of my work. They just wish the people I was hanging out with weren't so un-hip!'


'Bill Gates is somebody we're involved with, and he's got the deepest pockets of anyone. But his pockets aren't deep enough to fix this. This is a political problem. The good news is that if it's a political problem, it belongs to the people.'

http://www.surefish.co.uk/campaigns/features/0902_bono_oprah.htm
 
Africa makes a mockery of what we say, at least what I say, about equality and questions our pieties and our commitments because there's no way to look at what's happening over there and it's effect on all of us and conclude that we actually consider Africans as our equals before God. There is no chance.

20 years on I'm not that interested in charity. I'm interested in justice. There's a difference. Africa needs justice as much as it needs charity.
Equality for Africa is a big idea. It's a big expensive idea.

The scale of the suffering and the scope of the commitment they often numb us into a kind of indifference. Wishing for the end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa is like wishing that gravity didn't make things so damn heavy. We can wish it, but what the hell can we do about it?
Well, more than we think. We can't fix every problem— corruption, natural calamities are part of the picture here— but the ones we can we must. The debt burden, as I say, unfair trade, as I say, sharing our knowledge, the intellectual copyright for lifesaving drugs in a crisis, we can do that. And because we can, we must. Because we can, we must. Amen.

Yesterday, here in Philadelphia, at the Liberty Bell, I met a lot of Americans who do have the will. From arch-religious conservatives to young secular radicals, I just felt an incredible overpowering sense that this was possible. We're calling it the ONE campaign, to put an end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa. They believe we can do it, so do I.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bono

It's a fact. So why aren't we pumping our fists in the air and cheering about it? Well probably because when we admit we can do something about it, we've got to do something about it. For the first time in history we have the know how, we have the cash, we have the lifesaving drugs, but do we have the will?

I really, really do believe it. I just want you to know, I think this is obvious, but I'm not really going in for the warm fuzzy feeling thing, I'm not a hippy, I do not have flowers in my hair, I come from punk rock, The Clash wore army boots not Birkenstocks. I believe America can do this! I believe that this generation can do this. In fact I want to hear an argument about why we shouldn't. (ps..love that one!!)

* As a rock star, I have two instincts, I want to have fun, and I want to change the world. I have a chance to do both.

* At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms, God is looking for action.


But you know what's amazing? Everywhere I go, I see very much the same thing. I see the same compassion for people who live half a world away. I see the same concern about events beyond these borders. And, increasingly, I see the same conviction that we can and we must join together to stop the scourge of AIDS and poverty.

Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world— and stop being its apologist.

I'm tired of dreaming. I'm into doing at the moment. It's, like, let's only have goals that we can go after.

Isn't equality a son of a bitch to follow through on. Isn't Love thy neighbour in the global village so inconvenient?

Politicians don't turn me on, politics doesn't turn me on, the way music does. I have a lot more respect for them than I used to. They work a lot harder than I thought...but I don't want to be one.


These are about Bono


* I think that politicians are attracted at first by the celebrity but once they meet him, they find that he is outstandingly capable. ~ Jeffrey Sachs, Harvard economics professor. (1999)

* You have made people listen. You have made people care, and you have taught us that whether we are poor or prosperous, we have only one world to share. You have taught young people that they do have the power to change the world. ~ Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, to Bono. (November 1999)

Sorry its so long :ohmy: :wink:
 
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