Marching in the light of God

We are fighting for our rights as grannies,” says Magdeline Ramakobo of Alexandra, South Africa, shouting to be heard over the roar of grandmothers' voices filling the streets of Toronto. “We have to be recognised. We are so tired of not being taken like people.”

In the hours before the opening of the 16th International AIDS Conference that draws 24,000 delegates to Toronto, the streets are filled with the sound of grandmothers proclaiming their song: “We are marching in the Light of God.”
“As grandmothers from Africa and Canada, we were drawn together in Toronto for three days in August 2006 by our similarities: our deep love and undying devotion to our children and grandchildren; our profound concern about the havoc that HIV/AIDS has inflicted on the continent of Africa,” declares the Toronto statement.
On the eve of the conference, more than 300 African and Canadian grandmothers came to Toronto to participate in a Grandmothers Gathering hosted by the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

The Toronto Statement: “We are African grandmothers from Kenya, Malawi and Mozambique; from Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa and Swaziland; from Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, raising the children of our beloved late sons and daughters. We come to the end of this historic gathering filled with emotions: we are grateful for the chance we have been given — at long last — to make our voices heard.”
“Because we are the ones who are carrying the burden,” says Ramakobo. “Because our children are dead now we are looking after our grandchildren. I'm 66 years of age, how am I going to raise my grandchild?”
Like her, each African grandmother marching in Toronto has stories to share of daily struggle for survival in caring for some of the 13 million children already orphaned by the AIDS crisis.
As the march ends, two grandmothers stand to read what has become known as the “Toronto Statement,” on what the last three days have meant. It reflects, on the part of the Canadian grandmothers, a profound experience.

The Statement: “We are acutely conscious of the enormous debt owed to a generation of women who spent their youth freeing Africa, their middle age reviving it, and their older lives sustaining it. We will not rest until they can rest.”

“To hear the stories of these incredibly brave women,” says Donna Gene Browns, a grandmother from Toronto, one of many struggling for words to adequately describe the experience. “When you hear that many of these women … they sit down at the dinner table and they say 'children we don't have enough food again tonight, we will just say thank you to God that we're alive.'”
The Statement: “We recognize that our African friends are consumed each day with the business of surviving, and so we have offered — and they have accepted — the loan of our voices.”
“And we're absolutely appalled,” says Jane Earl of St. Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia, “at how little help they've been given over the years. So we've decided we can make a difference.”
The Statement: “We pledge to act as their ambassadors, raising the volume on their long-suppressed stories until they are heard, understood and acted upon.”
For the African grandmothers, the statement also reflects the sheer importance of being heard even as they struggle daily to meet basic needs: “It is our solemn duty to the millions of grandmothers whose voices have never been heard that gives us the courage to raise those needs to demands.”
“And that is why we have left our homes to come here,” says Ramakobo as she marches. “To fight for our rights.” Her new Canadian friends have heard her, and this is reflected in the Statement: “We promise to apply pressure on governments, on religious leaders, and on the international community.”
“Grandmothers! United!” — they shout together to the beat of a famous Latin America freedom chant: “Will Never Be Defeated!”

“We would like to see Canadians using their voices,” says Esther Lupafya, echoing the sentiments of the Statement. An HIV worker in Malawi, though not a grandmother herself, she has come for the main conference as a partner of PWS&D.
Developing our ability to hear these voices promises to strengthen and transform the relationships that connect the church across continents. We see it in the campaign of PWS&D. And in the Toronto Statement we can with great clarity see the transformative, liberating power of listening to the voices of our colleagues, counterparts, and perhaps even friends in the developing world. As we, like the Canadian grandmothers marching in Toronto, grow in our capacity to hear.
The Statement: “Through our new discovery — grandmother to grandmother solidarity — we carried ourselves and one another through the grief to where we are this morning. May this be the dawn of the grandmothers' movement.”