Today Is World AIDS Day

The hottttness that is Maxwell says Walk in AIDs patient's shoes.... Among the many blessings I've encountered in several years in the music business is the ability to use my voice to raise awareness for issues and to help others. My greatest joy is in expressing compassion for others. It's so important to take time away from your own circumstances and try to walk in someone else's shoes or see the world through someone else's eyes. As part of CNN's Heroes event last week, I got to see some of the most supreme examples of this from around the world. Tuesday is World AIDS Day, and I encourage all of us to put ourselves in the shoes of those battling this disease and especially consider some of the parts of our global community that are hardest hit. Consider this: in many countries in Africa, AIDS is the leading cause of death. This is a preventable, treatable disease, but still of the 33 million people living with this disease globally, 22 million are in Africa, and it continues to kill 3,800 people a day on that continent. But the more important thing we should consider is that this is not hopeless. There is something that can be done, and there is a way to do it. With two pills a day that cost as little as 40 cents, a person dying in Africa from complications from AIDS can be raised from near death and given a renewed chance at life. This transformation is called the Lazarus Effect. These two antiretroviral (ARV) pills a day are more than just medicine. They are a person's chance to get up on their feet, go to school or go to work and contribute to their communities. This treatment helps people reach their full potential and allows communities and countries to create a future. The issue now is how do we get this medicine to all who need it. When most of the people in these locations make less than a dollar a day, 40 cents is not easy to come by. And the trained medical staff and facilities are not abundant. This is where (RED) and the Global Fund come in and why I tip my hat to U2's lead singer, Bono, and others like him who look outside themselves to see where there are problems in the world and how they can make a difference. (RED) works with the hottest brands, such as Armani, Gap, Apple and Converse, to make unusual (PRODUCT) RED-branded products and direct up to 50 percent of their gross profits to the Global Fund to invest in African AIDS programs, with a focus on the health of women and children. Since (PRODUCT) RED launched in 2006, it has generated about $140 million for the Global Fund. This money has been generated simply by giving shoppers a choice and asking them to choose (RED), at no cost to them. It's millions of small choices around the world adding up to big change. This $140 million flows directly to AIDS programs in Rwanda, Ghana, Lesotho and Swaziland, the country with the world's highest HIV infection rate. It supports programs that not only provide ARV treatment free of charge, but creates access to testing and counseling and provides treatment to HIV-positive pregnant women to help ensure their babies are born healthy. These programs give people a chance for productive lives and children a chance to start life on the right foot. This one small thing reverberates a cause with effects greater than humanly imaginable -- you should choose (RED), but there are so many other ways to give as well: educating ourselves about the issue, spreading the word or getting involved in whatever seems most personal to each of us. But what is most important is keeping in mind that there are worlds out there beyond our own and there is so much that can be done if we take a moment to walk in someone else's shoes. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Maxwell. Love him. Source

All For A Good Cause!

For some reason, I only hear Yonce all over this song...I'm kidding! I do hear Melissa Ethridge a lil bit too. No seriously, some of the best female artists - Mariah aka Hello Kitty, Beyonce, Rih Rih, Mary, Keyshia Cole, Melissa Etheridge etc. - got together to record a song called, "Just Stand Up" to support Up To Cancer (SU2C), a new initiative to raise philanthropic dollars for accelerating ground-breaking cancer research. And lucky for us, we get to see all Divas perform the song live on Friday, Septemeber 5th when ABC, CBS, and NBC simultaneously devote one hour of commercial-free prime-time to this nationwide event. This will be the first simultaneous cross-network broadcast ever to raise funds for the fight against a disease. To listen to the song click: Can somebody else get on the mic Yonce? Dayum! And the Kodjoes are speaking out about their daughter and her battle with Spina Bifida. Nicole and Boris wrote us a letter: Dear Friends, We hope you are well. We are writing this letter to share with you a most personal issue and ask for your help. As some of you already heard, our little Sophie was diagnosed at birth with Spina Bifida, the most common birth defect in the US, affecting the brain and/or spine in an average of eight babies a day. Degrees of severity vary from quadriplegic children with major brain damage and spinal injuries to cases of neurogenic bladders or even lesser issues. We were blessed with a miracle child and spared of the more severe symptoms, but Sophie’s spastic bladder still forces us to catheterize her every three hours, day and night, to avoid pressure build up in her bladder and urine backflow into her kidneys. But frequent catheterization causes urinary tract infections, which are then battled with strong antibiotics, which in turn attack stomach flora and cellular balance, cause bowel issues, and that leads to more infections. It’s a never ending cycle and the prognosis from specialists all over the world is a life long dependency on catheterization and diapers, unless we’d agree to a bladder augmentation, which is quite risky and not a way we want her to live. While being a simple body function for able-bodied individuals, these activities may take hours for children with Spina Bifida. So after educating ourselves, studying hundreds of domestic and international cases, and researching alternative and traditional methods, our friend Jim Okula at the Spina Bifida Association of GA called us because he came across Dr Xiao from China. Xiao is the first and only person in the world who has developed a procedure of surgically rerouting nerves from the legs to the bladder, providing a new pathway for autonomic stimulation of the bladder, therefore teaching the bladder to empty itself over time. Dr Xiao has performed this procedure for the past 3 years in China and recently at Beaumont Hospital in Michigan with astonishing results, and now Physicians from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory University School of Medicine and Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, along with the Spina Bifida Association of GA want to bring him to Atlanta to supervise a surgical study including ten children. This has been Nicole’s and my priority, and now this procedure can change a lot of families’ lives. But the first phase of this surgical study is not funded, and therefore we are in this alone. Based on a successful outcome of phase one, phase two and the surgical study of 100 more children would receive federal funding. So right now we have to raise $1.88 million to pay for the surgical study involving 10 children. We have included some more information on Spina Bifida and the Xiao Procedure. Please don’t hesitate to write with any questions you guys might have. As you probably noticed, there’s a big blue ‘DONATE NOW’ button on the welcome page of this site. Please, please, please give as much as you possibly can to help make this a reality for thousands of families and their children affected by Spina Bifida. We thank you and we love you. Boris and Nicole To learn more about Spina Bifida click HERE. Source/Source