They came because they’d read a story.

In November 2007, a group of Bostonians converged at the Irish Immigration Center in downtown Boston, the workplace of Irish-born opinion columnist Thomas Keown. Some came because they’d been inspired by Keown’s article entitled “Give a Little Bit” which had appeared in the Metro two months prior. Others came because they’d received an email from Keown with the subject heading, “Our very own Irish Potato is starting a nonprofit.” Both the article and the email told the story of Anthony Mulongo, an up-and-coming Kenyan journalist whose life was forever changed by a girl named Gift.

As a teenager, Mulongo was chosen by the Kenyan government as one of the eighteen brightest students in the country to be enrolled in an intensive journalism school. He began a successful career as a reporter for national television and newspapers. Like all Kenyans, Mulongo saw street children frequently, but he never felt moved to do anything to ease the plight of these poor children whom most believed to be pests, until he met Gift and witnessed her story.

Six-year-old Gift was skeletal, her stomach protruding from starvation and malnutrition. Dirty and exhausted, she was carrying her infant brother on her back. Her mother had died of AIDS, so Gift had no choice but to dig through the trash to try to scrounge up food for her baby brother and herself. When Mulongo met Gift, he lifted her little brother off her back, only to find that he had died at some point in their journey. Gift had no idea until that moment.

This was a critical moment for Mulongo. He knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t do something to help. The choice he made changed the course of his life—as well as the lives of Keown and the others in the Irish Immigration Center. He decided to adopt Gift and raise and educate her as he would his own daughter. Additionally, he gave up his career as a national journalist and instead wrote advocacy pieces about street children.

When Keown visited Kenya on vacation in the summer of 2007, his plan was to spend time on the beach, see exotic animals, and drink cheap beer. But his friend Dave, who had done some pro bono legal work in Kenya, suggested that he look up Mulongo. Using quarters and a pay phone, Keown called Mulongo and the two men made plans to meet for lunch.

Keown got on a train from Nairobi to coastal Mombasa, the city closest to where Mulongo lived. When the train arrived in Mombasa, Keown was overpowered by the stench of rotting filth. He looked out the window and saw street children just like Gift who were digging and pawing through a mountain of trash, scavenging for something to eat.

When Keown found out that Mulongo was doing something practical to help children like those he had witnessed on the train to Mombasa, they connected instantly. Over a meal of bony chicken and watery soup, Mulongo told Keown how he had adopted Gift and, by this point, over 30 other street children as well. He and all the children lived in a small, three-bedroom house with a tin roof called “Mudzini Kwetu,” which means “our home.” Each of the girls living there had chosen her favorite color of paint and tattooed the house with her painted handprints, marking it as her own. The house’s walls were covered with bright yellow, red, and blue handprints, as high as the girls could reach. Mulongo’s goal was for these children to feel that they were part of a family and that the little tin house was where they belonged.

Keown went with Mulongo to see Mudzini Kwetu for himself. He met Gift, who was now 13 years old and acted as an older sister to the 33 girls and one boy who were living in Mudzini Kwetu. As the first child to be adopted by Mulongo, Gift was happy and healthy—living proof that a loving family and a good home can heal even the deepest scars.

But some of the other children, who had recently been rescued, were still physically and emotionally wounded, such as the three sisters who, for privacy, are known as K., A., and R. Like Gift, they had to forage for food after their mother died of AIDS; K. was 12 years old, A. was six, and R. was just a year old. After six months of living on the street and fighting for survival every day, they were discovered by the police. But the police didn’t help these girls; they turned them over to the authorities and they were sent to juvenile prison just for living on the streets. When Mulongo heard about the sisters’ plight, he and a pro bono lawyer fought to get them released into his care. They had to fight especially hard to get K. released because she was considered destructive and dangerous. When Keown met her, she was indeed bitter, angry, and mistrustful, as much from her months in prison as from her time on the street. The youngest sister, R., was still bony and malnourished.

The seven-month-old twins, Agnes and Macharia, were two other newly rescued street children. Agnes and her brother Macharia, the only boy living in Mudzini Kwetu, were found by the police starving and screaming in the slums of the nearby town Mtwapa. Residents of Mtwapa said the infants had been there for three days. Unlike the officers who stumbled upon K., A., and R., these officers knew about Anthony’s home for street children and brought the twins directly to him. Shortly thereafter, they found the twins’ mother, drunk on cheap liquor. “Save the girl if you want,” she said, “but throw the boy in the dustbin. He’s not going to survive anyway.” While at Mudzini Kwetu, Keown held Macharia in his arms; six weeks later, despite receiving the best care and medical treatment available, the little boy died.

Though these children came to Mulongo broken and abused, he believes that they will be the seeds of change that will break the cycle of poverty and injustice in Kenya. As a network of educated Kenyans who grow up together, they will enter industry and government, asking themselves and each other, “How do we make life better for children who are living on the streets like we were at their age? How do we build schools, provide clean water, and create good homes for them? How do we change the systems of injustice that contributed to their lack of resources, put some of them in jail, and made others live as sex slaves?”

Mulongo’s vision resonated with Keown. Up until that point, Keown had spent much of his adult life feeling cynical about large charitable organizations whose efforts didn’t seem to produce any tangible results. Sitting in Harvard Square with his friends, he had had many conversations over $3 coffees or $6 beers, discussing how there must be better uses for their beverage money but not knowing where to give it so that it would make a real impact. But Keown saw the difference that Mulongo was making. He was providing a home, a family, and an education for children who had suffered abandonment, starvation, disease, physical and sexual abuse, imprisonment, and neglect. And more than that, he was proposing a plan to equip these children to confront the country’s systemic injustices.

When Keown returned to America after his Kenya vacation, he continued to be inspired by Mulongo’s decision to devote his life to helping street children. He wrote his next Metro article about how everyone should follow Mulongo’s example and give up a little of themselves to make a positive impact on others’ lives. “Mulongo sacrificed everything,” he wrote, “but if we all give a little, no one has to give it all.”

Many celebrities, such as Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Kim Kardashian, Alicia Keys and Usher, signed off from Facebook and Twitter on World AIDS Day on December 1, promising to quit social networking until Keep a Child Alive’s “Buy Life” charity campaign had raised a total of $1 million. “I’m digitally dying tonite for WORLD AIDS DAY, this is my last tweet & testament,” he wrote.

However, Usher was back on Twitter when the charity had only raised $299,000 on December 5th. He tweeted on November 30th, “I’m digitally dying tonite for WORLD AIDS DAY, this is my last tweet & testament. Please visit http://bit.ly/dBDIai to BUY MY LIFE back now.” And, he started tweeting again on the 5th. Some fans were very excited to have him on Twitter again and others were wondering if he could tweet although other fellow celebrities have been still digitally dead.

Pop music star Cyndi Lauper and music sensation Lady Gaga are teaming up on a new campaign by joining MAC Cosmetic’s VIVA GLAM program, as the new voices and faces of the campaign to support women battling HIV/AIDS, a campaign that MAC started in 1994. Fergie, Christina Aguilera, Eve, Mary J. Blige and Lil’ Kim have helped to advertise and sell the lipstick line. Every dollar coming from the sale of Viva Glam lipstick and lip gloss is going to the MAC AIDS Fund. The Viva Glam Cyndi and Viva Glam Gaga lipsticks, each for $14, will be available on March 18.

According to HealthDay, Lauper said, “Fighting HIV/AIDS is not a one-woman job. Lady Gaga and I are using our voices as a call to action for women all over the world. I lost a lot of friends to AIDS before we even knew what it was. Today, across the world, women are more likely to become infected with HIV than men. Each one of us needs to do our part to fight for women impacted by HIV and AIDS.”

“We’re raising the VIVA GLAM bar this year with the voices of two incredible artists,” said John Demsey, president of Estee Lauder and chair of the MAC Aids Fund. “Lady Gaga and Cyndi Lauper are bringing women’s issues to the forefront of the HIV/AIDS crisis. We have one artist that hit the music industry at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, and another that is explosively popular with young people today. They represent different generations that are equally as affected by this disease, and both are helping to spread the message of the power of one lipstick.”

The program has already raised more than $150 million to combat the disease all over the world, from South Africa to the rural southern United States.

Under pressure from millions around the world, Ugandan officials are considering amending their proposed “anti-gay” bill that would, if passed, call for the death penalty or life imprisonment to those found to engage in homosexual behavior after being diagnosed with HIV.

Even with this people around the world, including me, still believe the bill to be outrageously prejudiced toward a societal group that very much does not deserve this discrimination. They certainly do not deserve to be treated like terrorists or murderers. They do nothing wrong.

Yesterday, on International Human Rights Day, groups around the world protested in front of Ugandan embassies calling for the government to put an end to the nonsensical bill. The government of Uganda, as well as several churches, are defending the bill as one intended to protect minors from being sexually harassed by older men.

Regardless of this claim, countries like Sweden have threatened to cut off aid to Uganda and some have even called for it to be thrown out of the Commonwealth.

But, now that officials are considering removing the death penalty and life imprisonment clauses in the bill, more factions of the Ugandan society may back it, as it may now be seen as less “controversial” or less medieval. However even if the amendments are made, the opposition will remain strong. This sort if justified, required-by-law discrimination against an innocent societal group is disgusting.

In 2006, when the BBC reported that a Ugandan newspaper went as far as printing the names of 45 suspected homosexuals in the country, I knew there was a problem. I just never thought it would ever come to this. Just horrible.

Yesterday was World Aids Day. A day we set aside to remember those who have perished as a result of the disease, and a day we use to honor those who battle it bravely.

This year has been a progressive one, in terms of treatment and accessibility to treatments. Though many have died as a result of HIV/AIDS, the overall number of those infected has no risen in the last two years.

With major efforts by the NIH and other nations planned for the upcoming year, the goal, on this World AIDS Day, is to decrease that number in the upcoming years.

Listen to find out what country is making waves with its new announcement on AIDS treatment, and what the U.S. is doing, and should do, to be a leader in the field.

(Link I speak of in the podcast: http://www.hrw.org/en/node/86936)

Micrograph showing HIV fusing with a cell membrane on entry. ‚© 2002 by Bruce Alberts et al.

Scientists in Thailand have announced the first success, though limited, of its kind in the development of an HIV vaccine last night.

AIDS is a serious disease, as we’re sure you know. In 2007, AIDS killed approximately 2.1 million people “" not exactly a small population. With million of new diagnoses each year, every major worldwide health organization has declared AIDS to be a pandemic.

Currently, the only medications available are highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimens. Developed with a patient’s doctor, three or four drugs are prescribed in combination to be taken together, in which the drugs and dosing are optimized for each patient. Those without access to industrialized medicine are without the benefits of these drugs. So, the best bet we have to defeating HIV is to prevent infection from occurring in the first place.

A vaccine that prevents HIV from infecting health immune cells or from spreading beyond them is the ultimate goal of research programs, but to date, every one has failed. The most recent program even showed an increase in HIV infection in those who received the vaccine, leading to an early termination of the program. Many scientists have actually called for HIV vaccine programs to be called off entirely, assuming that none of them would ever show any promise.

The vaccine under development is a combination of two previous vaccines that did show any benefit when used singularly. However, used together, the vaccines were able to prevent about thirty percent of HIV infections over the placebo treatment, a result that surprised

The vaccine works by shuttling three genes that code for proteins on the HIV virus in side a different, benign virus in an attempt to get the body to start producing antibodies against the HIV proteins, priming the immune system to attack HIV upon entry.

Scientists were disappointed however to see that those who received the virus yet became infected did not show lower viral loads than those who did not receive the virus. Also, vaccines licensed by the FDA in the US usually show about an eighty percent efficacy rate, so it’s very doubtful that the vaccine will ever come to market.This is why scientists stress that the study is an important starting point for the further development and optimization of a better HIV vaccine.