Mary Fisher Named unaids special representative
UNAIDS
In
spring 2006, Mary Fisher earned a new honor for work long close to her heart:
advocating for women and girls affected by HIV/AIDS.
United Nations
Under Secretary-General Dr. Peter Piot appointed Ms. Fisher to a two-year term
as a Special Representative of The
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), which Dr. Piot directs.
As a special representative,
Ms.
Fisher will raise awareness and provide advocacy on HIV prevention, treatment,
care and support, with an emphasis on women, children and youth. With the
appointment, she
joins a diverse group
of international notables who travel the globe on behalf of UN agencies.
The
UNAIDS announcement of Ms. Fisher's appointment noted that thanks to
her many contacts in U.S. political and humanitarian circles as well as media
and the arts, Ms. Fisher is well positioned "to support the UNAIDS mission of
empowering people – especially women and girls – to protect themselves and
live full, productive lives."
Mary Fisher with UN Under Secretary-General Dr. Peter Piot, who appointed her
a Special Representative of UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Programme on
HIV/AIDS).
ZAMBIA
Mary
Fisher first visited Zambia a few years ago because the University of Alabama
in Birmingham — home base of her Mary Fisher Clinical AIDS Research and
Education (CARE) Fund — supports an ambitious AIDS-fighting program there: the
Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ). Since that first
visit, her heart has drawn her back repeatedly to the south-central-African
nation, where there's both staggering loss from HIV/AIDS and heartening
progress against it. In coming months, Ms. Fisher will spearhead a campaign to
upgrade CIDRZ's Lusaka facilities and expand its life-giving services.
Though
one in six Zambians is HIV-positive,
CIDRZ has had
tremendous early success in the fight against the disease. At a recent UNAIDS
event in a packed Capitol Hill hearing room, Ms. Fisher bore witness to
CIDRZ's impact. “In a matter of months, 30,000 previously untested children
and adults in Zambia have been enrolled in care. They arrived, many of them,
curled in wheelbarrows. On the outskirts of Lusaka, in Kalingalinga, I
witnessed this miracle: A man with AIDS, who’d arrived skeletal and hopeless,
within weeks was triumphantly pushing his own wheelbarrow back home… Those who
kissed death now embrace life."
Mary Fisher and
Zambian friends in an open-air market in Lusaka.
But as CIDRZ has pursued miracles, it also has outgrown facilities. Its
operations currently fill four converted
homes and apartments scattered inconveniently around Lusaka. To help CIDRZ
keep delivering and expanding its life-giving services, Ms. Fisher will chair
a campaign to build and fund a single CIDRZ base of operations. The
ZAMBIA FIRST campaign aims to bring CIDRZ to scale with the HIV/AIDS
epidemic — that is, to make treatment and research move as fast as the virus
moves. Once developed, the knowledge and methods could be applied in Zambia,
then across Africa and the world.
Mary Fisher
cradles a baby girl on a recent trip to Zambia. CIDRZ's Prevention of
Mother-to-Child Transmission program has assisted hundreds of thousands of
Zambian women and infants.
ART AND ADVOCACY
Mary
Fisher travels the nation and the world, using her voice and her art to raise
HIV/AIDS awareness. On fact finding visits in Europe, Africa and the Middle
East, she meets quietly with people afraid to disclose their HIV-positive
status, bringing them encouragement and information. In broadcast interviews
and public addresses, she speaks urgently of how HIV/AIDS has slipped from the
headlines even as it assails ever-more-vulnerable populations: women,
children, minorities; the poor and disenfranchised.
She continues to transform her messages into powerful AIDS-themed art — works
that run the gamut from towering masonite sculptures to intricately stitched
and beaded quilts. Her recent works have been exhibited in international quilt
shows and displayed on Capitol Hill. The Convergence international fiber arts
conference chose her as both exhibitor and keynote speaker for its 2006 event
at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
