Caitlin finding hope from people fighting for their rights

On World TB Day (March 24) I attended a march sponsored by TAC and a handful of other South African NGOs. We were marching to demand better access to treatment for people with TB (tuberculosis), including multi-drug resistant TB (MDR) and extreme resistant TB (XDR). Before coming to TAC I never really understood what TB was, because it’s not something people really worry about in the US. I knew that before travelling abroad I was required to get a TB test done, but other than that I had never given the disease a second thought. However, last month I attended a meeting with TAC and MSF where I learned about TB from a medical perspective, and yesterday I learned more about it from a global health perspective. I was shocked to realize that TB is the leading cause of death in South Africa, with thousands dying every year. It’s also a completely preventable and treatable disease. At the march, which was attended by several thousand people, we stood in front of the parliament and heard speeches from leaders of various organizations as well as testimony from TB survivors. I was shocked when one of the leaders declared that “If our demands for better treatment for poor people are not met, we know that most of us standing here will die.” Before, I had really felt a part of the group, despite the fact that I was one of about five white people in the whole march. I had still been singing and dancing and holding my sign with everyone else, and I could almost pretend that I was a part of this community. But when the speaker said that I was struck by how different my life really is from the people who were standing next to me. This was a disease I had barely even heard of at home, and here was someone addressing this huge crowd and matter-of-factly telling them that this was going to be the cause of their deaths.  That was when I realized the reason I was standing there, aside from the fact that TAC had brought me along. It’s fine to be told about inequality of healthcare services and how the rich always get better treatment than the poor, but I never really absorbed it until I understood that my luck of being born into privilege in the US had completely shielded me from even having to know the name of this disease which poses a constant struggle to people in the townships and across the world every day. After someone from the government signed our memorandum and the crowd began to disperse, I asked someone with me if they thought our march was going to make a difference. He said it was a good question and that he really didn’t know. It made me think about how hard it must be to spend every day working for these goals, planning events, and not knowing if what you do will make an immediate difference. However, it gives me hope that people still fight for their right to healthcare and persevere instead of giving up.