Broke TAC selling T-shirts to fund its vital campaigns
THE Treatment Action Campaign has started selling T-shirts as part of an effort to raise funds to avert closure.
Mary-Jane Matsolo, its campaign and media liaison officer, said funds could run out within months.
“We have enough to keep us going until February next year,” said Matsolo.
“We have started reaching out to businesses, we are selling our T-shirts, and some of our runners have been participating in fundraising events like the Soweto Marathon — and we also got Graça Machel to endorse our campaign,” she said.
Matsolo described the organisation as a “voice that cannot be shut down” and said the spirit among staff members was to fight for the organisation to stay alive.
“We have our branches over six provinces, where we work hard to meet the fundraising targets we have set for ourselves,” she said.
According to struggle icon and retired judge Albie Sachs, the TAC “has probably been the most effective community-based civil society organisation in the world in recent decades”.
In one of its high-profile campaigns, the TAC took on then president Thabo Mbeki and his government at the height of the “Aids denialism” controversy and went to court to force the state to make life-prolonging antiretrovirals available for HIV-positive patients.
Sachs said the organisation “continued to play a major role in ensuring best usage of ARVs be- cause it is based in the communities and shows by example how people should stick to their pilltaking regimens, look after their nutrition and generally cultivate a healthy lifestyle”.
Mark Heywood, director of the Aids Law Project, believes the three million people who still do
There are still issues that hinder access to ARVs. You need force to push it
not have access to ARVs and drug shortages at clinics make the role of the organisation as important today as it was 10 years ago.
“Despite policy to roll out ARVs, there are still legal and systematic issues that hinder access for people. So you need a social force to address that,” he said.
“The only people challenging provincial health are from the TAC. It’s no longer about a push at national level but . . . at provincial and district level.”
Anglo American chief medical officer Brian Brink, who has supported the TAC in his personal capacity, said businesses should play a more active role.
“Businesses need to be engaged in the response to HIV, and they need to sustain it. We haven’t beaten it. And the TAC has always come from the perspective of people’s right to access to health.
“But even from a purely business perspective, there is a huge benefit to containing this burden of disease and in fact preventing it in the future.
“You will have a healthier workforce, and healthier communities who will be better customers. Your supply chain will also be healthier. It is good for business to invest in lessening the burden of disease, and we cannot simply rely on overseas funding.”