Zohn of Survivor Visits GHS for AIDS Awareness Talk
From the Greenwhich Citizen
By John Quinn
There are some problems in the world that does not require the attention of the average American citizen. But there are other problems that should not, must not be ignored by anyone, anywhere.
One of the latter problems is the AIDS epidemic that is decimating Third-World populations, particularly in many African nations, while becoming increasingly prevalent all over the world.
The best way to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS is to educate people about the dangers of the disease and the best ways to prevent contracting or spreading it. Enter the Greenwich High School AIDS Awareness Club, whose goal is to inform GHS students and the surrounding community about the growing threat of HIV/AIDS. To that end, they started AIDS Awareness Week, which wrapped up today after a weeklong series of fund-raisers, speeches and presentations to the student body.
On Tuesday, GHS played host to AIDS activist and former Survivor: Africa winner Ethan Zohn. Zohn co-founded the charity Grassroots Soccer, which works to educate professional soccer players and other local role models about HIV/AIDS and then trains them to go into schools and teach children.
It s hard to understand how big soccer is in Africa, Zohn told his audience.
If you combine football, baseball and basketball in America, that s about how big soccer is over there. So when these players come into schools, they are heroes, gods, and when they speak, the kids listen.
Grassroots Soccer has been wildly successful and has expanded from Zimbabwe to eight other African countries. Zohn said that the program will have educated about one million children by the end of 2008. Though it is hard to scientifically track attitudes, Zohn said one study showed that months after children went through the program, their knowledge of HIV/AIDS was considerably higher than average. An unexpected result was that children who didn t go to the program also showed remarkable changes in attitude and knowledge about the disease. In other words, the children are teaching each other. That was completely unexpected and very exciting, said Zohn.
Zohn was first exposed to the AIDS problem when he played goalie for the Highlanders, a professional soccer team in Zimbabwe. He recalled the natural beauty of Zimbabwe and his shock upon seeing graveyards overflowing with victims of AIDS as he traveled with his team.
He also recalled the death of a teammate who succumbed to the slims, an African nickname for the disease because it evokes the gradual wasting away of those who have it.
Zohn also showed a clip of the movie, A Closer Walk, a documentary about AIDS around the world that stars such notables as the Dalai Lama, Kofi Anan and Bono of U2. The clip showed an African child, withered and almost fetal in size, lying on a hospital bed as a doctor told the camera that there was little hope for her.
GHS students were encouraged by Zohn to find a cause that makes your heart break and support it. He also said that his experiences on Survivor: Africa were crucial to his desire and ability to help people. I was able to win the show because I learned to become selfless in a selfish game. At the end of the show I had a million dollars and I knew I wanted to use my money and my celebrity to help people. It s what you do with your fifteen minutes of fame that really counts.
Zohn s visit to the school was made possible by funding from the Red Ribbon Foundation, a local charity that educates people about the disease and raises money for other AIDS programs.
Its important that people in this area know about the disease, said Mary Beth McCarty, who is part of the foundation.
After Zohn s presentation, McCarty played a video produced by the foundation that featured local teens in various Greenwich locales and explained how much they did or did not know about the disease. Most seemed to know very little.
Featured in the video was GHS student Chris Lettich, an active member in the GHS Aids Awareness Club who has been working on the AIDS Awareness Week. When asked about the efforts of Chris and students like him, Zohn said, I think it s great when kids are willing to teach people about a disease that is taboo or scary to so many people. We could use more people like him.
For information visit: www.redribbonfoundation.org, www.grassrootsoccer.org, www.kickaids.org or www.acloserwalk.org.