TIME Europe Special Issue Features Four AIDS Advocates Among Its Heroes of 2003
The April 28 issue of TIME Europe is a special issue celebrating "36 extraordinary heroes" of 2003, including four AIDS advocates (Ripley, TIME Europe, 4/28). The following people were included for their work on AIDS issues:
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Zackie Achmat: Achmat, a South African HIV-positive AIDS advocate, in 1998 co-founded the Treatment Action Campaign, which "has become the country's leading AIDS pressure group," according to TIME Europe. Achmat has refused to take antiretroviral drugs until the South African government establishes a program ensuring affordable and equal access to treatment for all HIV-positive people. After a visit with Achmat in July 2002, former South African President Nelson Mandela described him as "a role model whose activism is based on principles that are admired well beyond South Africa's borders" (Hawthorne, TIME Europe, 4/28).
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Albina du Boisrouvray: Following the death of her son in a plane crash, the French countess, journalist and film producer sold $100 million in paintings, jewels and businesses to form the Association Francois-Xavier Bagnoud to assist children who are abandoned or orphaned as a result of the AIDS epidemic, TIME Europe reports. The association today runs 87 projects in 17 countries, including several AIDS orphanages, or "houses of tender loving care," and career education centers (Skari, TIME Europe, 4/28).
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Bono: The Irish rock star in 1984 became involved in African affairs after playing the Band Aid concert to benefit Ethiopian famine relief, and he eventually formed the advocacy organization Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa, becoming "Africa's best voice in the developed world," according to TIME Europe. Bono's fame "can open any door -- the Vatican, the White House" -- and his attempts to secure AIDS and debt relief "esche[w] emotion for realpolitik," according to TIME Europe. "Look, I know how absurd it is to have a rock star talk about debt relief or HIV/AIDS in Africa. But if not me, who?" Bono said (Tyrangiel, TIME Europe, 4/28).
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Sergei Kostin: Kostin, a geologist by training, in 1996 formed the Way Home, an organization designed to combat a policy in the Ukraine in which the homeless do not have the right to vote, collect pensions or collect aid from the state, TIME Europe reports. The organization has grown into an "all-purpose provider" of services for the country's poor, dealing with recent increases in injection drug use, child prostitution and AIDS. With the help of grants from the United States, England and the Netherlands, the organization provides an array of services, including the distribution of 400 sterile needles each day to drug users and the provision of medical treatment for the poor (Graff, TIME Europe, 4/28).