Touring African Villages Bring Personal Stories of AIDS to US

[Guest guest]

Touring African Villages Bring Personal Stories of AIDS to US

By Tom Banse

02 May 2008

As this year began, the United Nations reported that nearly 31

million adults and 2.5 million children were living with HIV, the

virus that causes AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the hardest-hit

region. With just over 10 percent of the world's population, it is

home to more than two-thirds of all people living with HIV. More than

1.5 million Africans died of AIDS last year. While the statistics

themselves are dramatic, a Christian humanitarian organization is

trying to dramatize the issue in a more personal way. World Vision is

taking two portable African villages on tour across the United

States. As Tom Banse reports, the exhibit designers confront the

question of how to get everyday Americans to care about AIDS in

Africa.

A sign welcomes visitors to pick up a headset before they are invited

to " Step Into Africa " and begin their tour

World Vision's Brown wants to convince Americans there are

worse problems than high gas prices. Top of his list: the worldwide

AIDS epidemic. " It's the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. "

Infection rates in the U.S. have fallen dramatically, but AIDS

continues to make millions of widows and orphans in Africa. In some

countries, like Lesotho, almost one in four adults is infected.

However, Brown and the international aid group he works for noticed

that repeating such facts doesn't move many people to action. " We had

to quit assuming that people were going to care about the headlines

and read them, " he explains. " As we talked about it, quit assuming

they would listen and that would be motivational enough. We had to

show the story and show the reality of it and then offer hope in it

as well. "

A World Vision volunteer sets up the exhibit's thatched hut in a

Tacoma, Washington, church gym

The result is a pair of touring mini-African villages. Brown

manages the West Coast version of the Immersion Experience... sights,

sounds, smells, and all.

Today, thatched huts, a roadside cafe, a spartan health clinic, and

grimy children's bedrooms have sprouted in a church gym in Tacoma,

Washington. Exhibit-goers listen through headphones as they are

introduced to a young narrator who will guide them through the maze.

For about 20 minutes, they walk in the narrator's shoes.

This child's bedroom is part of the World Vision Experience AIDS

exhibit

" My name is Kombo, " he tells them. " I live in Kenya. This is my

story... " They learn that Kombo is 8 years old. He lives with his

mother at one of the many truck stops along a two-lane road that has

come to be known as the " AIDS Highway. "

As visitors leave the village, they're invited to sponsor an orphaned

or vulnerable child in Africa.

Volunteers Jim and Lynn have minded the exit since the tour

started. " Wherever it goes, we go! " says Jim with a laugh. Lynn notes

that they've stopped in nearly two dozen states in the last nine

months, " so definitely did a lot of traveling. "

Volunteer Lynn talks to students at the World Vision Experience

AIDS exhibit

Jim is a retired sheriffs deputy; Lynn, a retired nurse. The s

sold their house in the Seattle suburbs and bought an RV to follow

the AIDS village. " We already sponsor four kids, " Lynn says. " We

figured we just can't keep sponsoring more and more kids ourselves,

but we can help other people to sponsor kids. " Jim adds, " We wanted

to do more. We just felt we have a short time here on Earth. It was

more important to invest in people's lives rather than a golf score

or a stamp collection or something like that. "

As we talk, a class of seventh graders from a Christian school enters

the mock village. The students get quieter and quieter as their

headphones bring bad news about the character they've stepped

into. " I am so sorry, Kombo, " they hear a clinic worker say. " I am

afraid you do have the big disease... "

A young visitor listens to Kombo's story as he walks through the

exihibit

Is immersion a way to make people care? It seemed to work for

students and Mark. " We should care the same about them

because we're all equal, " notes. Mark admits, " Before I went

in here, I knew they had AIDS problems. But I just kind of like

ignored it. Now that I went through, I realize how bad it is and how

hard they've had it. With enough people we could prevent this, if we

do it the right way and work together. "

Since World Vision's AIDS Experience began its tour last August,

80,000 people have walked through the villages, including

presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and President Bush's daughter

Jenna. Each visitor represents a potential victory in what tour

manager Brown calls a war on apathy. " If what's happening in

Africa doesn't motivate me as a human, as somebody that cares about

lives of other people, then I'm probably not going to care about

someone next door either. "

World Vision hopes to reach 200,000 Americans with the free exhibit

by the end of this year.

[Guest guest]

Touring African Villages Bring Personal Stories of AIDS to US

By Tom Banse

02 May 2008

As this year began, the United Nations reported that nearly 31

million adults and 2.5 million children were living with HIV, the

virus that causes AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the hardest-hit

region. With just over 10 percent of the world's population, it is

home to more than two-thirds of all people living with HIV. More than

1.5 million Africans died of AIDS last year. While the statistics

themselves are dramatic, a Christian humanitarian organization is

trying to dramatize the issue in a more personal way. World Vision is

taking two portable African villages on tour across the United

States. As Tom Banse reports, the exhibit designers confront the

question of how to get everyday Americans to care about AIDS in

Africa.

A sign welcomes visitors to pick up a headset before they are invited

to " Step Into Africa " and begin their tour

World Vision's Brown wants to convince Americans there are

worse problems than high gas prices. Top of his list: the worldwide

AIDS epidemic. " It's the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. "

Infection rates in the U.S. have fallen dramatically, but AIDS

continues to make millions of widows and orphans in Africa. In some

countries, like Lesotho, almost one in four adults is infected.

However, Brown and the international aid group he works for noticed

that repeating such facts doesn't move many people to action. " We had

to quit assuming that people were going to care about the headlines

and read them, " he explains. " As we talked about it, quit assuming

they would listen and that would be motivational enough. We had to

show the story and show the reality of it and then offer hope in it

as well. "

A World Vision volunteer sets up the exhibit's thatched hut in a

Tacoma, Washington, church gym

The result is a pair of touring mini-African villages. Brown

manages the West Coast version of the Immersion Experience... sights,

sounds, smells, and all.

Today, thatched huts, a roadside cafe, a spartan health clinic, and

grimy children's bedrooms have sprouted in a church gym in Tacoma,

Washington. Exhibit-goers listen through headphones as they are

introduced to a young narrator who will guide them through the maze.

For about 20 minutes, they walk in the narrator's shoes.

This child's bedroom is part of the World Vision Experience AIDS

exhibit

" My name is Kombo, " he tells them. " I live in Kenya. This is my

story... " They learn that Kombo is 8 years old. He lives with his

mother at one of the many truck stops along a two-lane road that has

come to be known as the " AIDS Highway. "

As visitors leave the village, they're invited to sponsor an orphaned

or vulnerable child in Africa.

Volunteers Jim and Lynn have minded the exit since the tour

started. " Wherever it goes, we go! " says Jim with a laugh. Lynn notes

that they've stopped in nearly two dozen states in the last nine

months, " so definitely did a lot of traveling. "

Volunteer Lynn talks to students at the World Vision Experience

AIDS exhibit

Jim is a retired sheriffs deputy; Lynn, a retired nurse. The s

sold their house in the Seattle suburbs and bought an RV to follow

the AIDS village. " We already sponsor four kids, " Lynn says. " We

figured we just can't keep sponsoring more and more kids ourselves,

but we can help other people to sponsor kids. " Jim adds, " We wanted

to do more. We just felt we have a short time here on Earth. It was

more important to invest in people's lives rather than a golf score

or a stamp collection or something like that. "

As we talk, a class of seventh graders from a Christian school enters

the mock village. The students get quieter and quieter as their

headphones bring bad news about the character they've stepped

into. " I am so sorry, Kombo, " they hear a clinic worker say. " I am

afraid you do have the big disease... "

A young visitor listens to Kombo's story as he walks through the

exihibit

Is immersion a way to make people care? It seemed to work for

students and Mark. " We should care the same about them

because we're all equal, " notes. Mark admits, " Before I went

in here, I knew they had AIDS problems. But I just kind of like

ignored it. Now that I went through, I realize how bad it is and how

hard they've had it. With enough people we could prevent this, if we

do it the right way and work together. "

Since World Vision's AIDS Experience began its tour last August,

80,000 people have walked through the villages, including

presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and President Bush's daughter

Jenna. Each visitor represents a potential victory in what tour

manager Brown calls a war on apathy. " If what's happening in

Africa doesn't motivate me as a human, as somebody that cares about

lives of other people, then I'm probably not going to care about

someone next door either. "

World Vision hopes to reach 200,000 Americans with the free exhibit

by the end of this year.

[Guest guest]

Chfu,

Before we can realise the level of this epidermic we must first search

for it's origin and how it got out of hand, was it mother nature that

spawned this deadly disease or was it man's own hand that sealed the

fate of millions of innocent men, women and children, here is

something interesting.

The Gay Vaccine Experiment and the Outbreak of AIDS

The earliest AIDS cases in America can be clearly traced back to the

time period when the hepatitis B experiment began at the New York

Blood Centre. The Centre began injecting gay men with multiple doses

of the experimental vaccine in November 1978. The inoculations ended

in October 1979, less than two years before the official start of the

epidemic. Most importantly, the vaccine was developed in chimpanzees –

the primate now thought to contain the " ancestor " virus of HIV. Also

downplayed is the Centre's pre-AIDS connection to primate research in

Africa and also to a primate centre in the New York City area. The

final experimental vaccine was also made by Merck and the NIH from

the pooled serum specimens of countless gay men who carried the

hepatitis B virus in their blood.

The New York Blood Centre (NYBC) is the largest independent blood

supplier and distributor in the USA. In 1970, Alfred M Prince, M.D.,

head of the NYBC Laboratory of Virology, began his hepatitis research

with chimps housed at LEMSIP (Laboratory for Experimental Medicine

and Surgery) in downstate Tuxedo, NY. Until disbanded in 1997, LEMSIP

supplied New York area scientists with primates and primate parts for

transplantation and virus research.

Founded in 1965, LEMSIP was affiliated with New York University

Medical Centre, where the first cases of AIDS-associated Kaposi's

sarcoma were discovered in 1979. NYU Medical Centre researchers were

also heavily involved in the development of the experimental

hepatitis B vaccine, and the Centre received government grants and

contracts connected with biological warfare research beginning in

1969, according to Dr. Leonard Horowitz, author of Emerging Viruses:

AIDS and Ebola (1996).

In 1974 Prince, with the support of Kellner, President of the

NYBC, moved the chimp hepatitis research to a new primate centre

called Vilab II in field, Liberia, in Africa. Chimps were

captured from various parts of West Africa and brought to VILAB. The

lab also prides itself by releasing " rehabilitated " chimps back into

the wild. One cannot help but wonder if some of the

purported " ancestors " of HIV in the African bush have their origin in

chimpanzees held in African primate labs for vaccine and medical

experimentation.

The hepatitis B experiment, which inoculated over 1,000 healthy gay

men, was a huge success with 96% of the men developing antibodies

again the hepatitis virus. This high rate of success could not have

been achieved if the men were immunosuppressed, because

immunosuppressed people do not easily form antibodies to the vaccine.

The experiment was followed by similar hepatitis B experiments using

gay men in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and St. Louis,

beginning in March 1980 and ending in October 1981, the same year the

epidemic became official.

In the mid-1980s the many blood specimens donated by the gay

Manhattan men during the experiment were retrospectively examined for

HIV infection by researchers at the NYBC. It was determined that 6%

of the specimens donated between 1978-1979 were positive for HIV. By

1984 (the end of the study period) over 40% of the men tested

positive for HIV.

The final fate of all the men in the experiment has never been

revealed. However, the blood donated by these men are the oldest HIV-

positive blood tests on record in the United States. The full story

of this experiment and its aftermath are contained in my two books on

man-made AIDS: AIDS and the Doctors of Death (1988), and Queer Blood

(1993). One fact is obvious: There was no AIDS in America until the

exact year the government began experimenting with gay men.

There is also a suppressed connection between the outbreak of AIDS in

Africa and the widespread vaccine programs conducted by the World

Health Organisation (WHO) in the 1970s in Central Africa,

particularly the smallpox eradication program. On May 11, 1987,

London Times science writer Pearce suggested the smallpox

vaccine program could have awakened a " dormant " AIDS virus infection

in Africa. Gallo was quoted as saying, " The link between the WHO

program and the epidemic is an interesting and important hypothesis.

I cannot say that it actually happened, but I have been saying for

some years that the use of live vaccines, such as that used for

smallpox, can activate a dormant infection such as HIV. "

This explosive story linking AIDS to African vaccines was suppressed

and never appeared in the controlled major American media. The

genocidal and depopulation implications of this suppressed story can

be found on the Internet by googling " WHO Murdered Africa " , by

, M.D.

This is part of the story, the reason why we have little on the

deathrow for crimes commited by lab geeks.

Rustam

>

> Touring African Villages Bring Personal Stories of AIDS to US

> By Tom Banse

> 02 May 2008

>

>

> As this year began, the United Nations reported that nearly 31

> million adults and 2.5 million children were living with HIV, the

> virus that causes AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the hardest-

hit

> region. With just over 10 percent of the world's population, it is

> home to more than two-thirds of all people living with HIV. More

than

> 1.5 million Africans died of AIDS last year. While the statistics

> themselves are dramatic, a Christian humanitarian organization is

> trying to dramatize the issue in a more personal way. World Vision

is

> taking two portable African villages on tour across the United

> States. As Tom Banse reports, the exhibit designers confront the

> question of how to get everyday Americans to care about AIDS in

> Africa.

>

>

> A sign welcomes visitors to pick up a headset before they are

invited

> to " Step Into Africa " and begin their tour

> World Vision's Brown wants to convince Americans there are

> worse problems than high gas prices. Top of his list: the worldwide

> AIDS epidemic. " It's the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. "

>

> Infection rates in the U.S. have fallen dramatically, but AIDS

> continues to make millions of widows and orphans in Africa. In some

> countries, like Lesotho, almost one in four adults is infected.

> However, Brown and the international aid group he works for noticed

> that repeating such facts doesn't move many people to action. " We

had

> to quit assuming that people were going to care about the headlines

> and read them, " he explains. " As we talked about it, quit assuming

> they would listen and that would be motivational enough. We had to

> show the story and show the reality of it and then offer hope in it

> as well. "

>

>

> A World Vision volunteer sets up the exhibit's thatched hut in a

> Tacoma, Washington, church gym

> The result is a pair of touring mini-African villages.

Brown

> manages the West Coast version of the Immersion Experience...

sights,

> sounds, smells, and all.

>

> Today, thatched huts, a roadside cafe, a spartan health clinic, and

> grimy children's bedrooms have sprouted in a church gym in Tacoma,

> Washington. Exhibit-goers listen through headphones as they are

> introduced to a young narrator who will guide them through the

maze.

> For about 20 minutes, they walk in the narrator's shoes.

>

>

> This child's bedroom is part of the World Vision Experience AIDS

> exhibit

> " My name is Kombo, " he tells them. " I live in Kenya. This is my

> story... " They learn that Kombo is 8 years old. He lives with his

> mother at one of the many truck stops along a two-lane road that

has

> come to be known as the " AIDS Highway. "

>

> As visitors leave the village, they're invited to sponsor an

orphaned

> or vulnerable child in Africa.

>

> Volunteers Jim and Lynn have minded the exit since the tour

> started. " Wherever it goes, we go! " says Jim with a laugh. Lynn

notes

> that they've stopped in nearly two dozen states in the last nine

> months, " so definitely did a lot of traveling. "

>

>

> Volunteer Lynn talks to students at the World Vision

Experience

> AIDS exhibit

>

> Jim is a retired sheriffs deputy; Lynn, a retired nurse. The s

> sold their house in the Seattle suburbs and bought an RV to follow

> the AIDS village. " We already sponsor four kids, " Lynn says. " We

> figured we just can't keep sponsoring more and more kids ourselves,

> but we can help other people to sponsor kids. " Jim adds, " We wanted

> to do more. We just felt we have a short time here on Earth. It was

> more important to invest in people's lives rather than a golf score

> or a stamp collection or something like that. "

>

> As we talk, a class of seventh graders from a Christian school

enters

> the mock village. The students get quieter and quieter as their

> headphones bring bad news about the character they've stepped

> into. " I am so sorry, Kombo, " they hear a clinic worker say. " I am

> afraid you do have the big disease... "

>

>

> A young visitor listens to Kombo's story as he walks through the

> exihibit

> Is immersion a way to make people care? It seemed to work for

> students and Mark. " We should care the same about them

> because we're all equal, " notes. Mark admits, " Before I

went

> in here, I knew they had AIDS problems. But I just kind of like

> ignored it. Now that I went through, I realize how bad it is and

how

> hard they've had it. With enough people we could prevent this, if

we

> do it the right way and work together. "

>

> Since World Vision's AIDS Experience began its tour last August,

> 80,000 people have walked through the villages, including

> presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and President Bush's

daughter

> Jenna. Each visitor represents a potential victory in what tour

> manager Brown calls a war on apathy. " If what's happening

in

> Africa doesn't motivate me as a human, as somebody that cares about

> lives of other people, then I'm probably not going to care about

> someone next door either. "

>

> World Vision hopes to reach 200,000 Americans with the free exhibit

> by the end of this year.

>

[Guest guest]

Chfu,

Before we can realise the level of this epidermic we must first search

for it's origin and how it got out of hand, was it mother nature that

spawned this deadly disease or was it man's own hand that sealed the

fate of millions of innocent men, women and children, here is

something interesting.

The Gay Vaccine Experiment and the Outbreak of AIDS

The earliest AIDS cases in America can be clearly traced back to the

time period when the hepatitis B experiment began at the New York

Blood Centre. The Centre began injecting gay men with multiple doses

of the experimental vaccine in November 1978. The inoculations ended

in October 1979, less than two years before the official start of the

epidemic. Most importantly, the vaccine was developed in chimpanzees –

the primate now thought to contain the " ancestor " virus of HIV. Also

downplayed is the Centre's pre-AIDS connection to primate research in

Africa and also to a primate centre in the New York City area. The

final experimental vaccine was also made by Merck and the NIH from

the pooled serum specimens of countless gay men who carried the

hepatitis B virus in their blood.

The New York Blood Centre (NYBC) is the largest independent blood

supplier and distributor in the USA. In 1970, Alfred M Prince, M.D.,

head of the NYBC Laboratory of Virology, began his hepatitis research

with chimps housed at LEMSIP (Laboratory for Experimental Medicine

and Surgery) in downstate Tuxedo, NY. Until disbanded in 1997, LEMSIP

supplied New York area scientists with primates and primate parts for

transplantation and virus research.

Founded in 1965, LEMSIP was affiliated with New York University

Medical Centre, where the first cases of AIDS-associated Kaposi's

sarcoma were discovered in 1979. NYU Medical Centre researchers were

also heavily involved in the development of the experimental

hepatitis B vaccine, and the Centre received government grants and

contracts connected with biological warfare research beginning in

1969, according to Dr. Leonard Horowitz, author of Emerging Viruses:

AIDS and Ebola (1996).

In 1974 Prince, with the support of Kellner, President of the

NYBC, moved the chimp hepatitis research to a new primate centre

called Vilab II in field, Liberia, in Africa. Chimps were

captured from various parts of West Africa and brought to VILAB. The

lab also prides itself by releasing " rehabilitated " chimps back into

the wild. One cannot help but wonder if some of the

purported " ancestors " of HIV in the African bush have their origin in

chimpanzees held in African primate labs for vaccine and medical

experimentation.

The hepatitis B experiment, which inoculated over 1,000 healthy gay

men, was a huge success with 96% of the men developing antibodies

again the hepatitis virus. This high rate of success could not have

been achieved if the men were immunosuppressed, because

immunosuppressed people do not easily form antibodies to the vaccine.

The experiment was followed by similar hepatitis B experiments using

gay men in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and St. Louis,

beginning in March 1980 and ending in October 1981, the same year the

epidemic became official.

In the mid-1980s the many blood specimens donated by the gay

Manhattan men during the experiment were retrospectively examined for

HIV infection by researchers at the NYBC. It was determined that 6%

of the specimens donated between 1978-1979 were positive for HIV. By

1984 (the end of the study period) over 40% of the men tested

positive for HIV.

The final fate of all the men in the experiment has never been

revealed. However, the blood donated by these men are the oldest HIV-

positive blood tests on record in the United States. The full story

of this experiment and its aftermath are contained in my two books on

man-made AIDS: AIDS and the Doctors of Death (1988), and Queer Blood

(1993). One fact is obvious: There was no AIDS in America until the

exact year the government began experimenting with gay men.

There is also a suppressed connection between the outbreak of AIDS in

Africa and the widespread vaccine programs conducted by the World

Health Organisation (WHO) in the 1970s in Central Africa,

particularly the smallpox eradication program. On May 11, 1987,

London Times science writer Pearce suggested the smallpox

vaccine program could have awakened a " dormant " AIDS virus infection

in Africa. Gallo was quoted as saying, " The link between the WHO

program and the epidemic is an interesting and important hypothesis.

I cannot say that it actually happened, but I have been saying for

some years that the use of live vaccines, such as that used for

smallpox, can activate a dormant infection such as HIV. "

This explosive story linking AIDS to African vaccines was suppressed

and never appeared in the controlled major American media. The

genocidal and depopulation implications of this suppressed story can

be found on the Internet by googling " WHO Murdered Africa " , by

, M.D.

This is part of the story, the reason why we have little on the

deathrow for crimes commited by lab geeks.

Rustam

>

> Touring African Villages Bring Personal Stories of AIDS to US

> By Tom Banse

> 02 May 2008

>

>

> As this year began, the United Nations reported that nearly 31

> million adults and 2.5 million children were living with HIV, the

> virus that causes AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the hardest-

hit

> region. With just over 10 percent of the world's population, it is

> home to more than two-thirds of all people living with HIV. More

than

> 1.5 million Africans died of AIDS last year. While the statistics

> themselves are dramatic, a Christian humanitarian organization is

> trying to dramatize the issue in a more personal way. World Vision

is

> taking two portable African villages on tour across the United

> States. As Tom Banse reports, the exhibit designers confront the

> question of how to get everyday Americans to care about AIDS in

> Africa.

>

>

> A sign welcomes visitors to pick up a headset before they are

invited

> to " Step Into Africa " and begin their tour

> World Vision's Brown wants to convince Americans there are

> worse problems than high gas prices. Top of his list: the worldwide

> AIDS epidemic. " It's the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. "

>

> Infection rates in the U.S. have fallen dramatically, but AIDS

> continues to make millions of widows and orphans in Africa. In some

> countries, like Lesotho, almost one in four adults is infected.

> However, Brown and the international aid group he works for noticed

> that repeating such facts doesn't move many people to action. " We

had

> to quit assuming that people were going to care about the headlines

> and read them, " he explains. " As we talked about it, quit assuming

> they would listen and that would be motivational enough. We had to

> show the story and show the reality of it and then offer hope in it

> as well. "

>

>

> A World Vision volunteer sets up the exhibit's thatched hut in a

> Tacoma, Washington, church gym

> The result is a pair of touring mini-African villages.

Brown

> manages the West Coast version of the Immersion Experience...

sights,

> sounds, smells, and all.

>

> Today, thatched huts, a roadside cafe, a spartan health clinic, and

> grimy children's bedrooms have sprouted in a church gym in Tacoma,

> Washington. Exhibit-goers listen through headphones as they are

> introduced to a young narrator who will guide them through the

maze.

> For about 20 minutes, they walk in the narrator's shoes.

>

>

> This child's bedroom is part of the World Vision Experience AIDS

> exhibit

> " My name is Kombo, " he tells them. " I live in Kenya. This is my

> story... " They learn that Kombo is 8 years old. He lives with his

> mother at one of the many truck stops along a two-lane road that

has

> come to be known as the " AIDS Highway. "

>

> As visitors leave the village, they're invited to sponsor an

orphaned

> or vulnerable child in Africa.

>

> Volunteers Jim and Lynn have minded the exit since the tour

> started. " Wherever it goes, we go! " says Jim with a laugh. Lynn

notes

> that they've stopped in nearly two dozen states in the last nine

> months, " so definitely did a lot of traveling. "

>

>

> Volunteer Lynn talks to students at the World Vision

Experience

> AIDS exhibit

>

> Jim is a retired sheriffs deputy; Lynn, a retired nurse. The s

> sold their house in the Seattle suburbs and bought an RV to follow

> the AIDS village. " We already sponsor four kids, " Lynn says. " We

> figured we just can't keep sponsoring more and more kids ourselves,

> but we can help other people to sponsor kids. " Jim adds, " We wanted

> to do more. We just felt we have a short time here on Earth. It was

> more important to invest in people's lives rather than a golf score

> or a stamp collection or something like that. "

>

> As we talk, a class of seventh graders from a Christian school

enters

> the mock village. The students get quieter and quieter as their

> headphones bring bad news about the character they've stepped

> into. " I am so sorry, Kombo, " they hear a clinic worker say. " I am

> afraid you do have the big disease... "

>

>

> A young visitor listens to Kombo's story as he walks through the

> exihibit

> Is immersion a way to make people care? It seemed to work for

> students and Mark. " We should care the same about them

> because we're all equal, " notes. Mark admits, " Before I

went

> in here, I knew they had AIDS problems. But I just kind of like

> ignored it. Now that I went through, I realize how bad it is and

how

> hard they've had it. With enough people we could prevent this, if

we

> do it the right way and work together. "

>

> Since World Vision's AIDS Experience began its tour last August,

> 80,000 people have walked through the villages, including

> presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and President Bush's

daughter

> Jenna. Each visitor represents a potential victory in what tour

> manager Brown calls a war on apathy. " If what's happening

in

> Africa doesn't motivate me as a human, as somebody that cares about

> lives of other people, then I'm probably not going to care about

> someone next door either. "

>

> World Vision hopes to reach 200,000 Americans with the free exhibit

> by the end of this year.

>