Board Education Kawartha Pine Ridge
As his five-year relationship with the African children and the institutions that support them has matured, Truelove has witnessed a similar growth in local student involvement in the projects.
Initially, Truelove was hesitant to talk about his time in Africa because the severity of the situations the African orphans find themselves in had all but rendered him speechless. Many children in Kilema have no parents, as the HIV-infection rate in this part of Africa is around 19% of the population. They are often brought up by older bothers and sisters, or sometimes by grandparents.
Jesse Kawzenuk, whose father Jeff was principal of CDCI West at the time and has subsequently joined Truelove on his trips to Africa, helped Truelove make a DVD that told his story.
The DVD was shown to the students at ENSS. Truelove was apprehensive because the student audience reacted with silence, but that was only because the story was so compelling.
Shortly afterward, the ENSS students, then their peers at PHHS and CDCI West, started getting on board and raising money.
To date $80,000 has been raised.
The statistics from Kilema are compelling. An orphan child living with HIV can be fed for only $5 (Cdn) a month. The medical costs to prolong life cost only 12 cents a day, or $200 a year. To put that in perspective, similar care within the Ontario health-care system would cost $13,000.
Truelove points out that the success of the Canadian program is due to its partnerships. The Canadian Support for Rural African Initiatives, The Canada-Africa Community Health Alliance, Rotary and the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board's Community Outreach and Engagement have provided a school, cookhouses, wells and education. New infrastructure has been installed with supporting health and education both in classrooms and in how to maintain infrastructure.
At present, 118 students attend a high school and more than 300 HIV orphans get lunch every day in a part of the country where it is not uncommon to go two to three days without eating.
Although the government has still not posted the transcripts from the final two copyright roundtables, all ten have now been completed. In all, 111 groups and individuals participated. As the chart below shows, the music and publishing industries led the way with the most representatives, followed by film/movie, creators, collectives, libraries, and academics. Most groups appeared once, the exceptions being ACTRA and the Songwriters Association of Canada (twice each).
