Sharing Nicely

Joe Richman of Radiodiaries in New York, who did the amazing Nelson Mandela audiomentary, sent this yesterday. The radio diary he did with Thembi Ngubane from South Africa has stirred a lot of interest in the US and Thembi is not returning home for a local tour. If you are in South Africa, make sure to come.

Friends of Radio Diaries,

25 years ago today – on June 5th, 1981 – the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the first warning about a disease that would become known as AIDS. It is worth taking a moment to think about how we’ll look back at the epidemic in another 25 years.

This is something that’s been on our mind for the last few months as we’ve been touring the country with Thembi and her AIDS Diary.

http://www.radiodiaries.org/aidsdiary

We at Radio Diaries want to thank all of you who helped support Thembi’s tour. The AIDS Diary project would not have happened without your help. We also thought we would take this opportunity to look back and share a few highlights from the tour.

As many of you know, we met Thembi Ngubane in 2004, at the age of 19, and gave her a tape recorder to keep an audio diary of her life with AIDS. This past April, Thembi’s AIDS Diary was broadcast as a half-hour documentary on NPR’s All Things Considered. Thembi’s story has become much more than a radio documentary. In April and May 2006, Thembi traveled to the US for a five-city tour. She presented her story to high school and college students, Congressional staff in DC, AIDS doctors in Boston, celebrities in Los Angeles and HIV positive teens in Chicago.

At one presentation to high school students, a teenager pointed to Thembi and said, “She’s too pretty to have AIDS.” After the event, he came up to Thembi and told her, “I’m a different person than I was when I came in here.” The same can be said for all of us who were part of the tour. Sometimes talking to a few hundred people face-to-face can feel as powerful as reaching 12 million over the airwaves.

Here are a few highlights from the tour:

Thembi was interviewed by The Washington Post, AP, Newsweek, and public radio stations across the United States. She recorded a video diary for MTV. And she wrote an essay on living with AIDS for the PBS/Frontline website. (Articles and links on our website.)

Thembi appeared on CNN as part of a panel of AIDS experts that included former President Bill Clinton, Paul Farmer of Partners in Health, the heads of Pfizer, Worldvision, CARE, Doctors Without Borders, and actor Richard Gere. (Watch a clip on our website.)

We have CNN to thank for Thembi’s personal tour highlight: spending an afternoon driving around New York City in a limo.

And… it’s not over.

In February/March 2007 we will be launching Thembi’s South Africa tour. We’ll also be distributing CDs of Thembi’s AIDS Diary to schools and translating the story into Xhosa and Zulu for broadcast on community radio stations throughout South Africa, and beyond.

Lastly, many of you have asked how you can help Thembi. We have started a campaign to build a house for Thembi and her family. $3,000 has been donated so far and we are trying to raise another $5,000. Find out how you can contribute.

http://www.radiodiaries.org/aidsdiary/donate.html

Visit our newly updated website to hear Thembi’s story, buy a CD, see photos and highlights from the tour, and learn more about our upcoming AIDS Action Toolkit.

http://www.radiodiaries.org/aidsdiary

Thanks for listening,
Joe Richman and the Radio Diaries Team
Radio Diaries is a not-for-profit organization
www.radiodiaries.org