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30 - The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday September 15, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com Harper snubs oomama's march on Parliament Hill By David lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF A group of Oakville grandmothers, who marched on Parliament Hill to raise awareness of the plight faced by their African counterparts, are calling their demonstration a success despite the fact they were completely snubbed by the Federal Government. About 500 members of 160 grandmother groups from all across Canada attended the rally last Saturday, which released a call to action statement challenging the Canadian government to come to the aid of African grandmothers who are struggling to raise grandchildren orphaned by the continent's AIDS epidemic. Oakville residents Sherry Ardell, Chrissie Tunstill and Kathy Mason were among the members of the local grandmother group oomama, which participated in the march in Ottawa. "It was fun, it was exciting, it was really well organized, it was inspirational," said Mason. Congregating in front of Ottawa's city hall, the grandmothers marched the four blocks to Parliament Hill where the demonstrators enjoyed the Sherry Ardell music of African drummers and children's school choirs before attending to business. This included presentations from two African grandmothers who had been brought all the way from South Africa by the Stephen Lewis Foundation to participate in the march. Those present were also honoured to receive Stephen Lewis' successor to the position of UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Elizabeth Mataka, who came from Zambia to take part. Unfortunately, says Ardell, despite being invited, representatives of the Federal government were not willing to show a fraction of the same interest. "We could not get any representatives from our Federal government to meet with us," she said. "We had our call to action statement which was read aloud and then (we) handed it to Elizabeth Mataka, we also wanted to hand it to a representative from the Harper government but this didn't happen." The call to action statement challenges the Canadian government to increase foreign aid contributions, to give direct assistance to the African grandmothers who are caring for millions of vulnerable children, to provide political leadership and generous financial support to international programs including the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and increase support for nongovernmental organizations working in international development and HIV/AIDS. The statement included a challenge to the UN to work with national governments and nongovernmental agencies to step up treatment and prevention methods for all families in Africa affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic as well as a plea from the African grandmothers calling on the Canadian government for some kind of action. "We do not need a great deal, but we do need enough - enough money for food, housing and school fees," reads their message. "We have buried our own children. We will not raise our grandchildren for the grave. Our grandchildren, like all children, deserve a future." This plea, which has already been ignored so many times, again received no attention from its intended target, said Ardell. "We all felt rather ashamed," she said. "Not only was it disappointing, but it was just embarrassing. Mataka came all the way from Zambia and not one representative was willing to walk across the Rideau." This is not the first time the Harper government has snubbed oomama. After a May presentation by Stephen Lewis in Oakville, more than 1,200 people in the audience signed lobby letters calling on the Federal government to make good on its 2004 commitment to manufacture generic antiretroviral medication. To the best of oomama's knowledge not a single reply was received. Ardell's reaction to this was to keep the pressure up by sending more letters. Taking a similar view of the federal government's no show in Ottawa, oomama members noted far more was accomplished than was not. "Elizabeth Mataka took the call to action back to the UN and we got national coverage on television," said Ardell. Tunstill also pointed out that the efforts of the Canadian grandmothers brought immeasurable joy to the African grandmothers in attendance. "They got such a feeling of support. They knew that someone cared, and these two African grandmothers that were there were so touched that they have sisters in Canada so many miles away," she said. Whatever the results of this march on Ottawa the members of oomama know there is more work to do as the need for help in Africa has never been greater. "Thirteen million children have been orphaned by AIDS and 20 million are expected to be orphaned by 2010," said Mason. "Thirteen million is a higher number than the number of children under 18 in Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Ireland together. It's a phenomenal number of children." What is more tragic, the women of oomama note, is that these deaths from AIDS are preventable and Canada is complicit in not stopping them. Canada, Ardell says, has manufactured generic AIDS medications, which were intended to help ease the AIDS pandemic in Africa. However, due to bureaucratic red tape none have been sent. "The leaders of countries are making a game of language, a game of standing up and making certain commitments and then absolutely failing to meet them," said Ardell who encourages everyone to step in where their politicians have failed. "We're ordinary grandmas and we want to get the message out that people as ordinary as we are can stand up and make a difference by putting certain pressure on government to make the right decisions." 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