[ SOCIAL AND PASTORAL BULLETIN No. 138 / Jun. 15 .2007 ] | ||
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Abe Keita (Franciscan priest) |
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In the past issue of August 2005, I presented the end of the activities
of Franciscan Father Nemoto Akio with HIV/AIDS patients in the South African
Republic, before he moved to do missionary work in Russia.
News has arrived from Fr. Nemoto. He explains the reasons why he moved
from South Africa to Russia and the situation in which AIDS Russian patients
find themselves.
Fr. Nemoto, in his confrontation as a Christian with the fury how AIDS
have been spread through all over the world, felt strongly the need to
transmit to others the importance of showing respect to life. He thought
about the matter during his stay in Africa where he met with AIDS patients
and was not able to do anything for them.
There is a demand for urgent measures to increase medicines against AIDS,
as well as establish more medical facilities and medical staff, because
the disease is not diminishing, but on the opposite, the disease continues
spreading rapidly in Russia, Europe and China.
In fact, since AIDS is very destructive and its handling quite complicated
it remains an issue that has no other comparison. There is no medical treatment
or vaccine able to totally heal it and no matter the efforts its continuous
spread knows no limit. During the Year 2004, more than 4,900,000 people
were infected with the disease and 3,100,000 people died of AIDS. The UN
estimates that the numbers of HIV patients remains high through Africa
and South East Asia and fears about the spreading of the disease in East
Europe, China and Russia.
Fr. Nemoto says that, the more he observed the realities of AIDS the more
he strongly felt the need to do something for those patients in other regions.
Thus, he left for Russia and similar to Africa looked for the poorest slums
convinced that he could find in them many patients, as it is the case with
other poor environments where AIDS spreads very quickly. That was the same
in South Africa where the disease found a fertile soil to spread.
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At present, the UN and various international assistance organizations continue
helping South Africa to fight the disease, but Fr. Nemoto feels that AIDS
is vastly spreading in other regions that are not reached by international
assistance.
Street children are steadily increasing in Russia. It means that such sad
social phenomena trigger also off the spread of AIDS. This is a sign that
in big countries too, no matter their size, a stretching poverty can not
remain hidden. Unemployment, DV (Domestic Violence) , alcoholic parents,
children of divorced families refusing to go to school or running off from
home and becoming drug addicts or inhalers of paint thinner, violence and
rapes escalate in all kinds of crimes often ending in AIDS infections.
Fr. Nemoto seemingly took over this Russian missionary project to make
appeals so that countries around the world take prompt action, not to repeat
the same errors of Africa.
One of his most cherished desires is to promote all over the world the
"education of life" so that people respect life, not only medicines
and medical treatment, that patients form an atmosphere of mutual support
and solidarity links that surpass national borders.
Patients still able to walk and those who can communicate with others can
visit those lying in bed and share with them their pain. They can encourage
each other by praying together and although their lives might be short,
they can confront death and console mutually each other. I do not think
that any medicine or fit medical treatment could ever surpass this. And
there is no better sign of respect for life than this. Because of this
he wanted to implement such a project.
Fr. Nemoto ends his letter adding that he is confident that, the day when
patients from Africa and Russia start to mutually communicate and encourage
each other the links of solidarity and healing will widely develop. Fr.
Nemoto becomes 76 this year. I felt that the new challenge of moving from
South Africa to Russia will continue.
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