South Africa's Sinikithemba HIV+ Choir and Tim Janis Ensemble Slate East Coast "Give Us Hope" Concert Tour

World AIDS Day In New York, Harvard Medical School Event Highlight Church World Service AIDS Fundraiser Series

November 14, 2002

New York, NY – 28.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa infected with HIV/AIDS and approximately 165,000 more people infected each month (according to USAID) are statistics difficult to relate to on a human scale. But when South Africa's HIV+ Sinikithemba Choir performs in the U.S. in December, they'll be putting a human face on the African AIDS pandemic and giving voice to hope.

As part of a U.S. "Give Us Hope" concert tour, The Sinikithemba Choir arrives November 23 and will join top Billboard-charting U.S. composer Tim Janis for the group's premiere concert on World AIDS Day, December 1, 4:00 PM, at New York City's The Riverside Church. In a groundswell of response to the choir's U.S. visit, The Harvard Medical School Division of AIDS is sponsoring a "Give Us Hope" concert Wednesday, December 4, at Harvard Memorial Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 7:30 PM.

Hosted and sponsored by international humanitarian aid agency Church World Service, the "Give Us Hope" concert series will raise funds for CWS' HIV/AIDS programs in Africa and for local AIDS charities. CWS, The Harvard Medical School Division of AIDS, and the tour's other co-sponsors also hope to raise greater consciousness around the profound toll that AIDS is exacting across Africa.

In Zulu, sinikithemba means, "place of hope." The 20-person Sinikithemba HIV+ Choir is part of a larger choir associated with the HIV/AIDS Care Center and McCord Hospital, Durban.

Other Tim Janis Ensemble-Sinikithemba Choir performance dates and locations include:

• Monday, December 2 at The New Haven Lawn Club, New Haven, Connecticut (Co-sponsored and hosted by the AIDS Interfaith Network).

• Tuesday, December 3 at First Presbyterian Church, Greenwich, Connecticut, 8:00 PM.

• Friday, December 6 at Portsmouth Unitarian Universalist Church, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 8:00 PM.

• Saturday, December 7 at Trinitarian Congregational Church, Concord, Massachusetts, 7:00 PM.

• Sunday, December 8 at First United Methodist Church of Germantown, 6023 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 8:00 PM.

• Tuesday, December 10, Reception on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. in The Gold Room, 2168 Rayburn House Office Building, 4:30-6:30 PM.

• Wednesday, December 11 at St. Margaret's Parish, 1820 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 8:00 PM.

The choir performed with the Tim Janis Ensemble for the first time in Durban in May. As part of a recording tour, Janis accompanied Church World Service to South Africa and performed in Durban and Soweto, events aimed at eradicating the stigma associated with being HIV/AIDS-infected in that country.

Response to the Sinikithemba choir was so positive, Church World Service and Janis helped raise funds to host the group in the U.S. for the "Give Us Hope" series. Most of the choir members have never visited the U.S.

Commenting on the impact of Janis' concert in Durban with the Sinikithemba Choir and in Soweto with the Imilonji KaNtu Choral Society, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, "Music expresses the pain of HIV/AIDS sufferers, but it also sings of hope."

In Africa, particularly South Africa, the stigma of HIV/AIDS has continued to take a heavy toll on AIDS prevention, transmission and the willingness of people to seek testing or treatment. One Sinikithemba choir member says, "There is no support for people who are HIV+ in the communities where we live. People point fingers at others, condemning them for being HIV+."

"They hate us for many reasons," notes another choir member. "They say that people dying of AIDS are filling up the cemeteries and the hospitals, that they are a burden."

But Sinikithemba is fighting that stigma with health care and hope. Says another choir member, "Faith is so important. It gives us something to believe in. AIDS is just another burden on top of lots of existing problems, such as having no job, no nice house, worrying about your children and their school reports and no money. Faith helps you to keep going, step by step, day by day."

As hosts of the Sinikithemba Choir's U.S. visit, Church World Service is a $70 million a year, global humanitarian agency working in partnership with NGOs and other local partners in more than 80 countries on behalf of its 36 U.S. Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican member denominations. CWS has broad U.S. grassroots support—particularly through its nearly 2,000 annual CROP WALKS, which last year raised more than $17 million to fight hunger in the U.S. and around the world.

For more information about "Give Us Hope" Concerts, locations and ticketing information, call Church World Service: (800) 297-1516, or visit www.churchworldservice.org.

NCCC News Service