Transcripts For WHUT Worldfocus 20100311

tonight on "worldfocus." >> tonight, a special edition of "worldfocus." a helping hand. we travel to the philippines to meet joe, who rescues poor street kids. from there we take you to jamaica and introduce you to miss jean. others reject them, but she has devoted her life to helping those with aids. in morocco, this woman protects hers who are often rejected by their families and scorned by society. ♪ >> from colombia, the library man. all it takes is a donkey and some books and the children come running up to him. ♪ from the different perspectives of reporters and analysts from around the globe, this is "worldfocus." major support has been provided by rosalind p. walter. and the peter g. peterson foundation, dedicated to promoting fiscal responsibility and addressing key economic challenges facing america's future and additional funding is provided by the following sporters -- good evening. i'm daljit dhaliwal in new york. as we prepare to wind down our program, we want tshare some of the best original reports that we have filed from around the world. so tonight we are re-broadcasting a program about some extraordinary individuals who we have met and who have devoted their lives to helng those who have been largely forgotten by society. tonight our scene is a helping hand. we look at the issues of poverty, ay and the stigma of being a single mother in some parts of the world, exploring them all through the eyes of some remarkable people who care. we start in the philippines where josola's life work is helping the street kids of manila. he knows first hand what they face because he used to be one of them. tonight mark lipkey on a man who says he feels very, very blessed. >> you'll find them today in every philippine city in town, near highways, shopping centers, tourist attractions, scavenging or hustling for money and food. the exact number, no one knows for certain, but estimates run as high as 1.5 mlion children who spend much of their day and often nights living or working on the streets. they are driven here by poverty and a dreary mix of other pressures. some are with parents who barely get by on meager street jobs. some are runaways, others abandoned or driven here by domestic violence and abuse. before age 8, they're skilled at begging. watch this girl's determination as she pleads for handouts from a passerby. before 18, it will be gang life, drugs, criminal activity, prostitution. many will fall prey to physical and sexual abuse by adults. it's 4:00 a.m. in manila as joe dean sola makes his morning rounds. a burly, lay missionary with kind words. a gentle touch and deep empathy for the children of the streets. >> the kids are suffering too much and lots of problems. these kids sleep on the concrete and they are -- the kids are so unhealthy, living in this kind of environment, a lot of kids are dying very young. >> joe dean sola was once a kid on the streets himself. he knows what it's like without. he feels their pain. you can see how he's trusted even by the most hardened teenagers and trust, joe believes, is his most powerful tool. it helps encourage children to drop by his small mission shelter. for a free meal, companionship, maybe a little advice about dangers on the street. a place to learn a few life skills, some responsibilities, something like, well, a normal life. >> what the real need of these children is they need somebody that can assure them that they are cared. somebody that can -- that can play with them and can embrace them in their situations. though space is limited, they can stay as long as they want, but joe knows not to push too hard because many kids say they're still more comfortable back on the streets. >> on the streets you like better. why? >> because, they tell us, it's where their friends are, where they make a little money, where they feel safe. safe because the street is the only life most of these ki have known. >> this is their home. this is where they're free and they feel safe. they feel safer here than they do at home, so to speak. >> natalie macaulay heads the child protection division of unicef in the philippines. she says aid agencies have had to accept that the problem of street children will not be solved any time soon. so unicef is also supporting smaller efforts now that give kids survival skills to add to their street smarts. one example, the street school. at a precise time and place every few days, a group called child hope arrives with the video van and street kids come from blocks around to watch the show. short stories about helping families, going to school, all positive images they rarely experience. the film is followed by question time and a lecture about being strong, having faith in themselves, and being safe on the streets. >> one of the best things we can do is teach children to ask for help and who to go to for help. it's information that could save them some day from vlence or abuse. it's about having someone to trust, someone like jodine sola over on the other side of town. ♪ >> his small mission now cares full time for about 50 street children, but more keep showing up to check things out. on some weekends it's like one big block party. it gives joe hope, even if it is a reminder of how much more needs to be done. >> i believe that, you know, i can do something, i can contribute something to save the children. >> one child at a time. >> one child at a time. one child at a time. >> one who survived a childhood on the streets now offering love, encouragement and support to another generation of street children. for worldfocus, this is mark lipkey, in manila, the philippines. >> after our story first ran, joe told us he was emotionally overwhelmed by offers of help and financial donations from many people who had seen the report. the last time we checked with him he told us that all of the children and families we met in the story were safe. closer to home, we turn to the caribbean and the issue of hiv and aids. after sub saharan africa, the caribbean is the second most affected region in the world. tonight we look at aids in jamaica and one woman who has become a guardian angel, an advocate for those fighting the disease and the widespread stigma and discrimination associated with it. she calls herself miss jean. worldfocus correspondent lisa biagiotti traveled to jamaica. >> aids is a fact of life in thompson penn, an inner city community on the outskirts of kingston. here, some of jamaica's poorest people are living with aids and the fear and social stigma that always seems to travel with it. ida northover,nown as miss je lived in this community for 59 years and a few years ago she volunteered to become the local representative for jamaica's aids program. >> i'm the lawyer. i'm the doctor. i'm the m.p. i'm the counselor. i do everything. everybody comes to me for just about everything. >> today an estimated 27,000 people are living with aids jamaica. miss jean has made it her job to look after those in her community, people like lasalle gray. when aids first appeared in jamaica in 1982 it was a death sentence. few medications existed and those that did the poor couldn't afford. >> a person can't buy their medication so people get real sick. people get sores. some people have that thing -- [ indiscernible ] >> most people live less than a year after diagnosis and suicide was a common response. >> the first time the doctor spoke to me i was thinking about suicide, you know? as life goes on, i go to my group for support. >> welcome to our support group, and the topic today is about -- >> the national program has set up support groups like this one to help people cope with the daily challenges of living with aids. >> when you get into a group of persons who are hiv positive and you see that they are well, they're looking well, they can be well, they're productive. and continue to live a normal life, this helps them psychologically. >> theiggest change came five years ago when the government began providing free drugs to everyone with the virus. >> they have the medication, and they can see that they're feeling much better. they're looking -- especially looking much better. nobody can suspect that that person looks like an hiv person. >> here, being publicly identified with aids often leads to social isolation and even violence. when nickon brown was diagnosed with hiv he was afraid to leave his house. >> he was not allowed to come out because the risk of him being killed or social rejection. there were other occasions where people want to get rid of them by lighting the place on fire or threatening to kill them. >>so i start to explain to them what hiv is all about, and -- you can't catch it that way. sexwise, blood, otherwise, you can't catch it. >> nickon has gone from being secluded in the room to know that the whole community is protecting him. >> miss jean's efforts have changed the lives of people with hiv in thompson penn, which today has become a haven of tolerance in a still turbulent sea of stigma and determination. >> you make a ripple and it becomes a wave. that's the whole concept, really, because we started with one, and i think we have now covered to the other adjoining communities. >> my heart goes out to these people. >> all of the communities are not as successful because it is not everywhere that we can find a jean. ♪ >> for worldfocus, i'm lisa biagiotti in kingston, jamaica >> one footnote, 43% of jamaicans who are hiv positive are now receiving anti-retro viral drugs. this is up 10% from 2006 and slightly above the global average. as you heard, those drugs are free in jamaica and with the support of community leaders like miss jean, more people are taking the drugs and understanding prevention. now we turn to an issue that often carries a stigma in the arab world becoming a single mother. for this report we travel to morocco to meet a woman who has taken many single young mothers under her wing. she has spent years as a kind of moth's mother to them providing all kinds of support to help them overcome the shame, despair and rejection they often face from their own families. worldfocus special correspondent hoda osman introduces you to madam ech-chenna and one of the young women to whom she's provided a renewed sense of hope. >> maria's daughter fatima is almost a year old. like most young mothers she delights, and she cans people to sure her side. fatima has never met her grandparents even though they live close by and that's because of something she doesn't have, a husband. >> having a child without a father is not an easy thing. >> when maria was just 19 years old and still a student she got pregnant. her boyfriend refused to marry her and in moroccan society, bearing a child without being marry side a source of deep shame. maria said she considered stead, she ran away without telling her parents about her condition. >> translator: i felt confused. i didn't know what to do. should i go home or go back? where should i go? i was in a big dilemma. >> when it was time to have the baby she was too frightened to go to a hospital. although it's rarely prosecuted there is a law in the books forbidding sex outside the marriage. >> translator: this isn't europe. this is morocco. the hospital means police and a scandal. eventually she ended up here at solidarity feminine, it's a casa blanca-based non-profit organization that supports single mothers. now miriam is learning a skill, after in the center's day care. the center is the life's work of 68-year-old aicha ech-chenna 25 years ago madam ech-chenna was a young mother herself. she was working as a social worker when she encountered a single mother giving up her baby. >> translator: when i saw her she was in the middle of feeding her baby and the baby was taken from her breast and started to cry. i left hiding my tears and couldn't sleep all night. thinking about that mother who was forced to give up her baby by social pressure, legal pressure and economic pressure, and that night i swore to do something so that this stops. >> in casablanca, morocco's largest city, with the population of about 3 million, about 1,000 whimper year give birth without being married, according to one study. solidarity feminine turns 50 women at a time into a trade. the organition lends women money to operate small businesses. it also runs its own restaurants, patisserie and beauty salon. those businesses have great fun. the organization is also supported by international ngos and the state. perhaps the most important thing that she offers is acceptance and love. >> we feel madam ech-chenna is like the children's grandmother. she helps us and is someone standing by our side. someone who says to everyone, no, a single mother is not a bad person. she's not a whore. >> some in moroccan society which is 99% muslim also disapprove of those who help single mothers. nine years ago madam ech-chenna was the subject of a death threat by religious extremists who said her work was immoral, but she refused to give up, a decision her family supported. >> translator: when i was condemned by the religious extremists here in morocco, my husband said to me you must keep youread high, you have to resist. you don't have the right to give up. there aren't a lot of husbands who would say that to their wives especially in our society. >> over the years madam ech-chenna has attracted powerful allies. among them, morocco's king, widely seen as a supporter of women's rights. in 2004 the king proposed a change to the laws regarding family life. morocco today has some of the most liberal laws in the arab world regarding divorce, marriage and the family. the government sets aside about 10% of the seats in parliament for women and about one-third of iversity professors and doctors are female. but societal attitude about pregnancy outside of marriage remain largely unchanged and it's societal attitudes that madam ech-chenna most hopes to change. >> i think that by changing the mentality of people you can transform society. so that the babies who come through her centers can hope for a future that is not haunted by events of the past. >> by the way, madam ech-chenna was recently awarded an opus prize. it recognizes people whose work and story provide inspiration to others to take on the world's most deeply rooted problems. the amount of the prize was $1 million. and finally tonight we travel to south america and one of our favorite and most inspiring stories. we call it the library man. he is bringing knowledge and a belief in what is possible to hundreds of farm children in a rural part of colombia, not with high-tech gadgets, but with the power of story telling that comefrom a good book. in a place where libraries are few and far between, he brings the library to them. the story is by valentina canavasio for ichoa productions. ♪ ♪ ♪ [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] ♪ ♪ ♪ [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] >> thanks to donations by people who saw our story, the new library is now up and running. for those who still can't get there, luis still delivers books on weekends by donkey. that's it for tonight. you can tell us what you think about our special edition of "worldfocus" by going to worldfocus.org. i'm daljit dhaliwal in new york. good-bye. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com major support for worldfocus has been provided by rosalind p. walter and the peter g. peterson foundation dedicated to promoting fiscal responsibility and addressing key economic challenges facing america's future.