A few weeks have passed since our last newsletter. The donated copies of the “HIV Curriculum for the Health Professional,” which we received through the generosity of the Baylor International Pediatric Aids Initiative, are on their way to the Gambia. At the same time, the Gambia is beginning to open its eyes to the relentless and devastating threat of HIV.

Yesterday, at the opening ceremony of the national workshop on HIV/AIDS organized by The Department of State for Education in the Gambia, Dr. Ajaratou Njie-Saidy, Vice President and Secretary of State for Women’s Affairs, spoke of the devastating prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, where approximately 26.6 million people are believed to live with the disease. Yet, personal risk perception in the Gambia, especially among young people, is significantly skewed such that many people still do not understand how to avoid exposure and infection. Even among school-aged children, she explains, high-risk behaviors are so prevalent, that appropriate education should be integrated directly into the school curriculum. Clearly, much work must be done in this regard — and we could not agree with her more!

On a different note — the post office responsible for our address has accidentally misplaced the appropriate paper work and, therefore, in their infinite wisdom, temporarily closed our post office box. The problem has since been rectified and apologies by the U.S. postal service have been given ….. If anyone reading this newsletter tried to send anything to us and had their mail returned to them, please, kindly send it again. We are truly sorry for this inconvenience which, fortunately, was brought to our attention sooner rather than later. Still, I will suggest to the responsible postal clerks that a small donation to Healing Hands would not be an unreasonable way to make up for their error….

Ingrid Feder Sidibeh, MD President