| ‘One Life,’ one world, one vision to end AIDS World Vision exhibit aims to drive home World AIDS Day by Regan White regan@thecharlotteweekly.com
But near the front, in the center of the hall, was an enclosed African village of sorts – an outpost in both appearance and sound, which drew conference attendees with the rhythmic poundings of African bongo drums. It was the “One Life Experience” exhibit, the 2-year-old brainchild of nonprofit powerhouses World Vision and Youth Specialties to bring the experience of the AIDS crisis in Africa to America. World Vision, founded in 1950, is a global community development organization that assists approximately 100 million people in nearly 100 countries with HIV/AIDS care and prevention, disaster relief, economic development, child sponsorship programs and more. Youth Specialties, founded 38 years ago, serves church-based youth workers of all Christian denominations through books and events like the annual National Youth Workers Convention. The two joined forces five years ago to begin raising awareness for those suffering with AIDS in Africa. “We’d been talking about ways we could work with World Vision, but nothing seemed like it really clicked,” said Mark Oestreicher, president of Youth Specialties. “One day we heard this statistic that American evangelicals were the least likely segment of the population to be willing to give $2 to help an AIDS orphan. That has changed a lot, but when we first heard that we thought, ‘You know, if parents won’t do it, (then) teenagers will respond to this.’” The concept and partnership were born. “We came up with this tagline ‘You have one life; do something,’ and that was basically the encouragement,” Oestreicher said. Yet after a few years of presentations, videos and guest African speakers, the two organizations knew they needed something more. Experiential exhibit Oestreicher brainstormed with members of the World Vision team, including Michael Yoder, World Vision’s director of church programs. “We came up with this idea of a kind of elaborate walk-through exhibit that would really allow people who go through it to virtually experience the life of a child in Africa,” said Yoder. “We wanted people to have a tangible experience that was not just like going to one of these booths,” Oestreicher said, gesturing to the convention hall around him. A driving impetus was creating an environment like the Holocaust Museum, where visitors move through the exhibit and have their own unique experience. A dozen World Vision and Youth Specialties staff members and freelance writers, designers, carpenters and set builders created the “One Life Experience,” a 3,000-square-foot interactive exhibit. The exhibit took a quick six months from concept to convention-hall reality. “Really, we look back now and we would say God directed this thing because none of us can really remember individually how it happened,” Yoder said. “It wasn’t the one grand idea of any single person or any one of our organizations; it was really just a collaborative way it came together.” Number crunching the effects of the AIDS crisis is mind-numbing. Twenty-five million people have died of AIDS since its discovery. In 2005, 2.8 million people died of AIDS worldwide – 2 million of those were people in sub-Saharan Africa. A whopping 76 percent of the world’s HIV-positive women live in sub-Saharan Africa. The disease’s effects on Africa’s children are devastating. It is estimated that 12 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have lost one or both parents to AIDS. By 2010, it is predicted that worldwide more than 20 million children will have lost parents to the disease. AIDS through a child’s eyes It is only fitting, then, that one should experience the exhibit through the eyes of a child. Through the wonder of MP3 technology, visitors share in the experience of one of four children – Beatrice, Timothy, Olivia or Stephen – all of whom have been affected by AIDS. All four are real stories of children who have been helped by World Vision; their names were changed for the exhibit to protect their privacy. I slipped headphones over my ears and slid into their world. For 20 minutes that Friday I was Stephen, a 13-year-old from northern Uganda who was abducted in 2004 by rebels and forced to join the ruthless and notorious Lord’s Resistance Army. Stephen is beaten and forced to participate in violent combat that exposes him to disease in a region where AIDS is rampant. As I listened to his story, interwoven with throbbing African music, I walked the narrow, rough corridors of the exhibit’s passages. The exhibit is divided according to your character, so while other visitors walked the lives of the three other children, I was alone to listen to Stephen’s life, stare at the pictures of him and his family, see the small straw pallet on which he slept and view the crayon drawings he made. They are visions that a 13-year-old never should have seen, let alone have to work through on construction paper – renderings of him killing others; drawings colored with pain, regret and guilt. Following his liberation from the LRA, it came time for Stephen to report to a health clinic for an HIV test. A low-lit clinic is set up for the purpose in the exhibit. The door creaked and the edginess of the waiting room was palpable. Heartbeats pounded in my headphones and it was difficult to tell where the recording ended and my own heart began. I was surrounded by other exhibit visitors, each waiting their turn in line, each equally involved in their stories. When considering if he might have HIV, Stephen rhetorically wonders if he’s being punished for the deeds he was forced to do. I can still hear his voice in my head. He was HIV negative. Others were not so lucky. A small, wooden cathedral in the exhibit is lined with black-and-white photographs of individuals with HIV and AIDS, many of whom have died. Breaking through, reaching out For Yoder, the multisensory experience was necessary to break through to visitors. “I think young people these days are so used to being in the middle of experiences,” he said. “We knew if we really wanted to get them to understand what the needs are in Africa for the AIDS orphans, we couldn’t just produce another video or make another speech. We needed to give them something experiential to be able to allow them to understand it in the way that they’re used to engaging with things these days, which is to really dive in and experience it.” The end of the exhibit includes a prayer wall where visitors can write thoughts, prayers and invocations on paper cards and post them. Yoder recalled prayer card commitments with comments like, “I never knew before what you are experiencing; I commit to caring and helping you, people of Africa” and “God forgive me for not knowing before now how children suffered so much in Africa; I’ll never forget them.” A card posted in the Charlotte exhibit simply stated “God help us” in capped letters. “You could walk up to that wall and start reading those notes and you wouldn’t even have to have been through the entire exhibit or even understand what it’s about, and it would literally bring you to tears,” Yoder said. Even more touching is that the cards are not written in vain. Cards that are directed to the people of Africa are made into booklets that are distributed to World Vision workers in Africa. “They go into homes and village meetings and they say ‘We’ve got this book of cards from people in America and this is what they’re thinking about you; they know about you and they know what you’re facing,’” Yoder said. “It’s such a blessing for the people of Africa to see these hundreds of notes and cards with deeply heartfelt sentiments on them.” More personal prayer cards are kept on file at the World Vision office and not shared publicly. Fiscal, educational effects The exhibit’s effect has been profound. Thousands have experienced it, both at conventions and at singular locations such as New York City’s Grand Central Station. Smaller, lighter modules are being created for use around the country. “We’ve had a lot of people say that it’s been life-changing,” Oestricher said. “Some people I know who came through this (exhibit) feel like they’re supposed to now spend the primary effort of their lives figuring out how to raise funds for (the AIDS crisis and World Vision mission).” Because of World Vision’s American dollars raised in 2005, more than 100,000 young people in AIDS-affected regions received HIV prevention training; 812,000 children benefited from sponsorship; 1,500 sustainable development projects were created; $140 million in food grants was provided; 689,000 jobs were created; and 71,000 more children and adults gained access to clean water in West Africa alone. Oestreicher admitted fund raising is a big part of the solution but so is education. “We want visitors to change their world view,” he said. “We want them to understand that an AIDS orphan, or any child in Africa, is a brother or sister of ours. Part of our response to the gospel of Jesus Christ is to do this stuff. It’s not just about trying to convert people. The clear call of Jesus is to bring help; we see it as a mandate … and we’re seeing a change.” As Yoder explained, an exhibit like One Life is exactly what’s needed to shake the cobwebs of indifference and prompt action. “So many of our tragedies in our world happen so quietly, behind the scenes,” he said. “The AIDS pandemic unfortunately is one of them. It’s millions of people infected and slowly dying in huts in villages in the middle of nowhere that we really can’t easily see or touch or understand their plight. … That’s why we need things like this AIDS experience (exhibit), because we need to be able to break through the clutter of everything that impacts our lives as Americans … and step away into an experience that really unleashes the passion that I do believe exists in every person.” He added, “We’re not manipulating (visitors) to care and to respond to something that isn’t there; we’re just telling the story truthfully. … It’s just a straightforward “This is what life is like for a child in Africa today.’” Want to know more? Visit www.worldvision.org or www.youthspecialties.com for more information.. |
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