Tiny symbols of hope

Little Travellers HIV/AIDS initiative needs your support to keep making a difference

Marlo Campbell

“Everybody has this goal of saving the world and doing something positive, and then for some reason they’re not connected to the right opportunities and they lose their idealism,” says Ilan Schwartz, founder of the Little Travellers HIV/AIDS Initiative.

“I want to use this project as an example – to show that all it takes is a couple people to get together with a vision of making a difference.”

Two years have passed since Schwartz returned from a volunteer stint in South Africa, rallied a few friends together, and began selling the tiny, hand-beaded pins known as Little Travellers.

The initiative has definitely made a difference. It’s now raised over $100,000 for South Africa’s Hillcrest AIDS Centre; money that supports about 100 women, including those personally infected/affected by HIV/ AIDS, and those who volunteer as caregivers.

Remaining money has been used to fund a 12-bed respite unit run out of a once-vacant wing of the local hospital, a much-needed addition that Schwartz says is “probably the most significant and important change to the AIDS Centre since I was there.”

He gets teary talking about little Luyanda, an 18-month old orphan who was brought in at the brink of death – so ill his skin was peeling off in sheets and he was cold to the touch. Volunteers fed him with a syringe, cuddled him, and cried for him. Miraculously, he survived and has since been adopted into a loving home

“It’s because of the dolls that they’ve been able to keep this respite unit open,” Schwartz says. While over 75 per cent of the unit’s patients still die, he says that at least now, “they’ve been given the love and the dignity that they deserve.”

Unbelievably, Hillcrest officials learned this June that the hospital wants its wing back, which means the respite unit will be evicted in February 2008. An architect has already stepped forward with plans for a new building, but the centre now needs to raise $2 million rand (about $290,000 CAD) for construction costs.

“That’s been some added incentive for the Little Travellers community,” Schwartz says grimly.

Now in his third year of med school at the U of M, the 25-year-old divides his time between schoolwork and marketing, trying to keep the momentum going.

His latest scheme is a photo contest, cooked up over drinks during a trip back to Hillcrest this summer. People are to send in pictures of their Little Travellers (with prizes courtesy of Hillcrest), and the best of the bunch will be displayed alongside photos taken by the beaders themselves at an exhibit hosted by the Durban Art Galley in early spring. Deadline for entries is Oct. 15.

Meanwhile, a group of teachers are creating lessons centred around the dolls – a project spearheaded by a Grade 3 teacher from Fisher Branch, Man., who was given a Little Traveller as a gift – while other volunteers have begun stockpiling the pins for the upcoming holiday season.

True to form (and unable to resist the opportunity) Schwartz describes each one as a “magical emblem of hope in hardship,” and says they make great gifts.

For more information, check out www.littletravellers.net.

[ Uptown Magazine Sept 20, 2007 - Tiny symbols of hope : click here for original PDF ]

Little Travellers fight big problems

The Manitoban Online

September 19, 2007

Little travellers fight big problems

U of M students help fight AIDS in Africa

EVAN JOHNSON, STAFF

 

“People know that there’s this thing called AIDS in Africa, but I don’t think most people have any idea of the extent of the impact it has on families and on communities and on individuals,” said Ilan Schwartz, a 25-year-old University of Manitoba medical student and creator of the Little Travellers HIV/AIDS Initiative, a unique fundraising project that has, since its inception in 2005, raised over $100,000 for HIV/AIDS relief in South Africa.

Little Travellers got its start after Schwartz returned to Canada from a stint volunteering at Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust, a non-profit, non-governmental relief centre located in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, a region with a particularly high prevalence of HIV infection—about 40 per cent in the province and an estimated 60 per cent in the area around Hillcrest.

One of the excellent programs undertaken by Hillcrest is their income generation craft project, in which women affected by HIV/AIDS earn an income by constructing various craftwork items, including a variety of small, adorable beaded dolls (Little Travellers), several of which Schwartz brought with him upon returning to Canada. He started to get offers from people wanting to buy the dolls and agreed to sell them on the condition that the money go to Hillcrest. Then, realizing that he had stumbled across an excellent fundraising opportunity, he decided to take action.

With a group of his generous Bannatyne campus classmates, Schwartz started a group called Simunye—Zulu for “we are united”—and was able to get the initiative started.

“Our first shipment was 1,000 dolls and everyone thought we were crazy, that we’d never sell 1,000 dolls,” he said. “It turned out that those 1,000 dolls were sold out in about three days.” The dolls sell for five dollars each.

Now, Little Travellers has sold over 21,000 dolls, and the project has nearly 100 beaders earning a living creating them. Because 100 per cent of the money raised through the sale of the dolls goes to those affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa — approximately half of the money goes to the crafters, while the rest goes to other Hillcrest aid programs — the initiative relies on the support of various sponsors, including U of M student organizations like UMSU, to keep the operation running.

This past summer, Schwartz returned to Hillcrest along with fellow U of M medical student and Little Travellers organizer-volunteer Kristine Christoph, and the two spent time talking with many of the Hillcrest beaders. Though they had both volunteered there before, Christoph stressed the impact of getting a chance to speak with the Hillcrest women specifically about the impact of Little Travellers.

“One women told us that everything in her house she has been able to purchase with the money she’s received from making Little Travellers,” she said. “It was definitely such a joy to hear about the pride that people have in knowing that when they go to bed at night they’re sleeping in a bed that they purchased with their own money.”

With this pride comes a sense of empowerment that has significant importance in a country where the social stigma attached to HIV/AIDS infection can be extremely destructive to families and individuals, particularly women. Schwartz stressed in particular “the link between financial dependence and the inability to negotiate safe sex and to make one’s own reproductive choices,” and referred to an HIV-infected woman he spoke with who was able to use her newfound financial independence to convince her stubbornly resistant husband to get tested for HIV and subsequently receive treatment.

Recently, Schwartz had a chance to meet with Stephen Lewis, erstwhile UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, and took the opportunity to ask for Lewis’s endorsement of Little Travellers. Initially, Lewis was resistant because of the large number of groups and organizations that seek his approval, but in the end he provided an emphatic, ringing endorsement, calling Little Travellers “totally inspired” before adding, “I endorse it every stitch of the way.”

Visit www.littletravellers.net for more information. Those interested in volunteering with Little Travellers are encouraged to attend a meeting at 226 Oxford St. on Sunday, Sept. 23 at 7:30 p.m.. Little Travellers can be purchased at the University of Manitoba BookStore, as well as at other locations around the city.

Little Travellers Run For Darfur!!!

By now, the globetrotting nature of the Little Travellers is well known – if you want proof of their world-wide jaunts, look no further than the entries from our Photo Contest.  Whether by plane, train or automobile, they sure get around! However,  Little Travellers also love to walk and to run – which is why they are to be special guests at Winnipeg’s highly anticipated “Run 4 Darfur”! This family event, taking place Sunday, October 7th at Assibiboine Park aims to raise awareness for, and money to benefit victims of the ongoing atrocities in Sudan.  The Little Travellers are proud to be involved in such an important cause, and challenge all Manitobans to come out and take a stand against injustices in Darfur, Sudan. But please don’t stand for too long in one place, or you might just find yourself in a cloud of dust with a Little Traveller getting smaller and smaller on the horizon!