So easy to take it for granted

By Heather Killen

Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

Margie VanBinsbergen, newbie to the Grannies Club, now appreciates what a rare gift Hope is.

She admits that until her granddaughter Hope was born, she didn’t get the Granny-thing at all.

“It’s a subculture,” she says. ”I’d see them at parties, getting out photos and bragging. They’d shop for them, and dote on them. It’s so competitive.”

As if to prove the point, VanBinsbergen is wearing a white T-Shirt with a picture of Hope fixed to the front.

The Granville Ferry Granny says that when she looks at the newest member of her family, she sees the past, present and future come together in one tiny package.

She sees traces of herself, her mother, her father, her husband and her daughter in Hope’s expressions.

“Grandmothers can take so much for granted. We know the children will be fed, clothed, go to school, and play ball- without any effort on our part,” she said.

“It’ll just happen without worry or responsibility. And it’s a natural thing that it should.”

VanBinsbergen and other local grannies are organizing a Grannies United Tea on September 27 from 2 until 4 p.m. at the Annapolis Royal Nursing Home to raise awareness about the plight of African grandmothers.

While the AIDS pandemic has lost the headlines in the western world, the disease continues to ravage the third world.

About 13 million children have already been orphaned by HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s estimated that another five million will be orphans by 2010.

Grandparents - mainly grandmothers - care for between 40 and 60 per cent of these orphans; and less than 10 per cent of these families receive any outside support.

“These women have already lost their daughters, and now are struggling alone to care for often sick and dying grandchildren,” she said.

Communities fearfully shun these women, so they struggle alone to support the children with meager resources.

Like their Canadian counterparts, senior women in Africa often live below the poverty line and are among the poorest of the poor.

“These women have been robbed of their dignity and the support of their community,” she said. “Imagine burying your children and then raising your grandchildren under a cloak of shame. And then burying your grandchildren.”

Unfortunately, the cost of burying the children consumes a large percentage of what income the women have.

In 2006, a delegation of 100 grandmothers from 11 African countries traveled to Toronto and met with 200 Canadian grandmothers on the eve of the XVI International AIDS Conference.

This Grandmother’s Gathering brought the problem to the forefront of the conference with a collective statement they presented to the conference, “We grandmothers deserve hope.

“Our children, like all children, deserve a future. We will not raise children for the grave.”

VanBinsbergen added this statement hits home, showing how much she and other Canadian grandmothers take for granted.

“We ache for them,” she said. “Their lives are complicated and tragic, they have all the responsibility and none of the joy that goes with being a grandmother.”

In response, about 120 grandmothers groups have formed across Canada to raise awareness and support for their African counterparts.

VanBinsbergen’s group formed last month with six members from Digby, Bear River, and Annapolis Royal. She added that as word travels, hopefully more grandmothers will join ranks with the latest Grannies Club.

According to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, about 68 per cent of the more than 33 million people infected with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa; and the majority of those infected are women.

For more information, contact Margie VanBinsbergen at (902) 532-0663, or visit the Grandmothers to Grandmothers section of the website at www.stephenlewisfoundation.org