She directs the Kenya Working Group, a volunteer group within the International Centre for Disability and Rehabilitation at the University of Toronto to coordinate volunteer rehabilitation professionals and students to go to Kenya and provide services within resource-poor settings.
For most of the past year, Hard lived in rural Kenya helping children with disabilities in the face of HIV. Aug. 12, 2006
Anticipation
I've only just settled down, putting my feet up and nursing a well-deserved glass of wine after running the gauntlet to get my AIDS 2006 conference package: a maze of escalators, walkways, crowds of people attending to distant signs, the occasional swinging purse to duck and more than a few travel-weary, floor-seated people to step over.
A whole Saturday (and a beautiful one at that) spent standing in line with several thousand pleasant but uncomfortable delegates waiting for the line to make some slight movement forward.
The throng was generally courteous, and only the occasional cheer broke the monotony as another successful delegate received a conference badge and the line nudged forward.
I am able to overlook the long, drawn-out process of attaining my official registration package because of the excitement and anticipation of being back in Toronto for this international event. For the better part of the past year I have been living with a family in rural Kenya, providing volunteer rehabilitation services to children living with disabilities who otherwise would not receive any attention.
On more than one occasion, I would be the first health-care provider to meet a person with an HIV infection problem of which they were unaware. It highlighted the importance of understanding the disease and how everyone in a community needs to be aware in order to successfully combat the virus.
The face of HIV infection is the face of children and people who live in communities not only in the rural areas of Africa but here in Toronto as well.
Returning home only a month ago, it's been a frantic time of re-establishing connections with friends and family, finding a place in Toronto's fast-paced work environment (not to mention a place to live), and not forgetting the people I lived and worked with over the past year or the promises I made to help in what seems a world away.
The Toronto AIDS 2006 conference is giving me a wonderful opportunity to try to live up to those promises by participating in discussions where the disabled have often been voiceless, and by reciprocating Africa's hospitality by hosting our Kenyan friend so he can share with the conference his first-hand experience with the pandemic.
Tonight, as I sit down with my colleague and my almost empty glass of wine, I will eagerly dive into my newly acquired conference package with great anticipation. It is exciting to realize that I have returned home to meet with people from around the world who are focused on the issue of HIV.
I hope this year's conference will not only provide a forum for discussion about the disabling nature of HIV, but raise awareness of the disease and perhaps provide a greater understanding that everyone in our global community has not only a stake in fighting HIV but has a role in ensuring victory against HIV.
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