Eliza Petrow, who put on the wonderful fundraiser for AIDS orphans in China last week in Cambridge, wrote to give me accurate details about the project. This is the project where they are working to care for AIDS orphans from a small village in China where the adults were infected by HIV when they gave blood to make money and the needles used were unsterilized. I thought some of you might like to know and also to hear that Eliza received a gift of $1,300. yesterday from a woman who was not even at the fundraiser.

Here is what Eliza wrote—

“The organization in China is called the AIDS Orphan Salvation Association (AOS). Because they do not have NGO status in the States, we borrowed another NGO, The Alliance for Children Foundation of Wellesley, who agreed to take donations on their behalf and not take any overhead. They have done that for AOS in the past so they agreed to do it again.

AOS was founded by a Chinese woman, Zhang Ying in 2004, but Dr. Kay Johnson gave Zhang Ying funds from her first book as a way to help Zhang Ying have the finances to start AOS. Kay has been working with AOS as kind of a volunteer since then, helping to get meds for the kids from the states as needed, and linking up other student volunteers to the organization.

My project, the Pediatric HIV/AIDS Treatment Support Project, is part of AOS- kind of a program within a program. It just focuses on the 36 HIV+ kids currently in AOS (there are over 500 kids in the organization but the others are not HIV+). Since they are the most vulnerable and needed the most support, I decided to focus my work on them. Kay has been a great help to me since she is the one who has the contacts to get the second line AIDS medications from the US and so I have left that part of the job to her.

There are two websites for the AIDS Orphan Salvation Association. The English version of the organization’s Chinese website is:

faaids.com

The organization in the US handling the donation also has a site and has some information about AOS on this site:

afcfoundation.org

Neither site has been updated in a long time to include specific information about the medical treatment support project, but they have a lot of information about the organization in general for those who want to read up on it. There are also some great photos and they explain the history of doing AIDS work with this population.

For those who would like to make a donation, the best way is to send a check to:

Alliance for Children Foundation
55 William Street, Suite G10
Wellesley, MA 02481

May sure to mark 5/8 AOS fundraiser on the check memo so that they will give 100% of donations (and take no overhead) to this project.

Alliance will send a letter to you for tax purposes once they receive the donation so be sure to include your address.”

So, this gives an idea of the way the support is structured and how you can make a donation!

The $1,300. Eliza received yesterday will care for 1.5 children for one whole year—that is housing, food, education, and medical supervision. The medication is provided by the Chinese government unless second line drugs are needed should resistance to first line drugs develop. In this case the drugs are provided by the U.S. With proper care they will be able to live full productive lives. If any of you, my fine, good readers, wish to make a contribution, small or large according to your means, it will be most welcome, for sure.
Eliza’s email ended with a little poem from Emily Dickinson—

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Such a nice gift to read those words. Sometimes it’s the small simple things we do that so enrich our own lives as well as those of others. Thanks Emily! And Eliza!!