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Trip to Africa offers life-changing perspective by Tim Gehret Public Relations    Maybe it was fate that united Cynthia Cupit Swenson, Ph.D., and Eve Spratt, M.D.; or perhaps the planets happened to align at just the right time. Whatever the cause, the professional and personal connection they share has led them to unite in a fight against AIDS in a disease-riddled African country.   Swenson and Spratt assembled 17 other adults, including community leaders from Union Heights and 19 young African-Americans from North Charleston known as Djole (which means much dance), to form the Djole Dance and Drum Company. The troupe recently returned from the African nation of Ghana in an effort to touch and save lives.     The dance company, formed in 1999, was one result of the Family Services Research Center’s (FSRC) Neighborhood Solutions Project, an MUSC Healthy South Carolina Initiative that was launched in 1997. Swenson, associate director of FSRC, directed this project and worked closely with the people of the Union Heights neighborhood to develop prevention activities and interventions to address the problems of youth violence and crime. African dance and drumming was an activity that the young people of Union Heights embraced and one at which they excelled, Swenson said. Djole members rehearse on a weekly basis and have performed for local, national, and international arts festivals. A five-year relationship with a non-government African organization called Nkabom Artists and Craftspeople, headed by Samuel Nkrumah Yeboah, has evolved into an endeavor of global outreach and education. Nkabom (which means “unity”) called upon Djole to help with the AIDS crisis and Djole responded to that call. Two years of development and fundraising were required to conduct the project.      The purpose of “Children Teaching Children about AIDS: A Djole Journey to Africa” was to increase the awareness and knowledge about AIDS among economically disadvantaged black American and African youth by partnering with Nkabom artists and craftspeople.   “In Africa, they’re emphasizing the prevention route, because diagnosis and treatment is not always available,” Swenson said.   Swenson and Spratt met nearly 15 years ago when both were new to Charleston and MUSC. Both had a history that included working in Kenya, attending Florida State University and a professional passion that included helping kids. Though they never met in Tallahassee, they were mentored by two brothers at FSU; one a professor of psychology and the other a professor of music. Their paths finally crossed at MUSC when they shared cases in their work to help child victims of maltreatment and their families. Spratt’s medical background is in pediatrics and child psychiatry and her undergraduate work was in music therapy prior to attending medical school. Swenson asked Spratt to join the Africa project to serve as the team’s physician. In addition to her general pediatrics expertise, Spratt has worked with the MUSC pediatric AIDS team for 10 years.   In Africa, a primary method of transmitting information is through traditional African dance and drumming. With the help of their African partners, Djole learned, rehearsed, and perfected an AIDS education performance and joined seven other groups of artists to perform with the Ghana Dance Association, and at a school for street children, an orphanage, and the Elmina Slave Castle in Cape Coast to demonstrate care and concern from their U.S. neighbors and to educate the street children of Ghana on AIDS prevention. They also helped Nkabom to begin construction on an arts and job-training center that will provide a venue for working with disadvantaged and street children, and pulling women, who are in the sex trade, off the street and into job training.   An estimated 24.5 million people are living with HIV in Africa, accounting for 64 percent of all people living with HIV in the world. The World Health Organization said that HIV/AIDS is firmly established within Ghana’s general population and shows no signs of stabilizing. Young Africans, in general, are increasingly at high risk, particularly young girls, as evidenced by rising HIV infection levels among young people aged 15-24 in Sub -Saharan Africa. The epidemic continues to reverse life expectancy gains, erode productivity, destroy the workforce, consume savings and dilute poverty reduction efforts. Swenson, Spratt, and the rest of the group, from ages 7 to 80 years old, were followed by a film crew that documented the experience.   Seeing malnutrition up close, witnessing the need for and lack of medical resources, and a primitive education system made the U.S. children realize their good fortune. If nothing else, Swenson said, it changed a bit of their view of the world.   “We were prepared to see diseases and poverty,” Swenson said. “But we were not prepared to see children die. We saw a baby having an asthma attack and the hospital had no equipment to save that child’s life. We doubt that she survived. Seeing the hardships of others and the children who were hungry and orphaned due to AIDS was especially hard on our kids.”   Swenson said she, Spratt and others from MUSC and the Union Heights Community are now looking ahead at ways of using their experience to garner support from the MUSC community for a health promotion partnership with the people of Ghana.   “They’re a country with very little treatment for AIDS, so they are working to fight the disease at a very basic level,” Swenson said.   Education and environmental cleanliness to help fight other diseases is essential to an improved life for the children there, Swenson said. “We are fully committed to partnering with Nkabom and continuing our mission and accomplishing what we can together,” she added.     Friday, Sept. 8, 2006 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.