South African Choir Sings in Mamaroneck to Raise Money for AIDS Medication

by Joan R. Simon

(December 2, 2004) On the eve of the December 1st World AIDS Awareness Day, Richard and Lisa Witten of Mamaroneck hosted a benefit concert in their home by a unique choral group from South Africa. All members of the group are infected with HIV, yet they sing in a choir named Sinikithemba, which means “we give hope.”

photo by Lisa Witten

The singers are Zulu men and women who are part of a support group for persons with HIV/AIDS at McCord Hospital in Durban, South Africa, a country that has been devastated by AIDS-related illnesses. According to UNAIDS statistics, in South Africa, 20% of adults aged 15 to 44 were living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2001 and 40% of recent deaths have been attributed to AIDS.

The purpose of the choir’s United States tour is to give people here the chance to see the human face of the epidemic. One face is that of Mimi Badumuti, a choir-member and mother. “It is a privilege to be on medication,” she remarked. For her seven-year-old daughter, the availability of proper medicine has meant having a mother to raise her.

At McCord Hospital, approximately 70% of all patients have HIV-related illnesses and 40% of the women delivering babies are HIV infected. Mimi Badumuti, like many others, would not have survived without the medication, reported Dr. Bruce Walker of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, one of the world’s leading AIDS scientists and a member of the South Africa project. He estimated that very soon the cost would be about $125 per year to keep a person alive.

“We feel strongly that it is unacceptable that people die for want of existing medications,” said Lisa Witten, commenting on the benefit concert she and her husband sponsored. “It is particularly painful in South Africa, where a multi-racial society has finally prevailed after decades of apartheid, only to be ravaged by a preventable and mostly curable plague.”