Brent Stirton/Getty Images

A girl stands in a field wearing a white dress March 28, 2004 in Richards Bay, South Africa. She is an orphan whose parents died of AIDS. Getty Images is partnering with the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS ongoing projects.

In recognition of World AIDS Day (December 1, 2006) I am in Nairobi, Keny with the GBC working to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The main focus of my trip is to document, through imagery, HIV+ orphans and other vulnerable children, women’s empowerment and healthcare accessibility.

Today, approximately forty million people are living with HIV worldwide - a number that continues to rise everywhere, every day. Only by continuing to educate and raise awareness can we work to prevent the spreading of this disease any further.

AIDS sufferers, no matter where they live, generally have on thing in common - the neglect of government, a lack of understanding from their communities, prejudice, ostracism and a general lack of acceptance and support. Most sufferers have been surprised by the disease - it would have snuck up on them in an environment without information or education. The fact is that what is most common to AIDS worldwide is ignorance. That is how the disease is able to inundate itself into people’s lives on such a grand scale.

While in Kenya, I am simply attempting to provide good people with a visual body of evidence which they can use to compel the relevant authorities to act. My pictures are my reaction to what I am seeing and for the most part, I have seen great dignity and stoicism in the people that I have photographed.

In the cycle of human drama that is constantly presented to a working photojournalist, I think we have to find new ways to tell an old story. If we don’t, we risk that story slipping into oblivion and falling off the radar of collective social responsibility. All I am trying to do is tell that story in the most powerful way I can under the limited circumstance that time brings to any story.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Pictures, World AIDS Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.