AIDS: Uganda

The problem was there, but the support was small. We wanted to do something bigger. - Jennifer Akello, c0-founder of local ngo FOCREV

This selection of images are from an HIV/AIDS clinic in the district of Busia in Eastern Uganda I photographed for Firelight Foundation in 2012. The clinic serves over 1,200 patients that come as far away as Tanzania to receive treatment and counseling, often in states of extreme vulnerability.

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A family waits to receive HIV/AIDS counseling and treatment. Often one hears stories of men transmitting HIV/AIDS to their wives or girlfriends, as polgyny and multiple sexual partners are not uncommon in Uganda.

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USAID and other foreign humanitarian aid organizations have been vital to ensuring funding and medicine in places like Eastern Uganda.

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While their support is essential and desperately needed, it is limited by underpaid, understaffed health care workers and an inconsistent supply of medicine.

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From government corruption to an aid program that only lasts three years, this instability takes it toll over the long-term by perpetuating the reliance of communities on foreign aid, rather than implementing programs that achieve self-sustainability.

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A woman receives ART treatment at the Lumino Health Center III in the Busia district of Uganda.

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Many campaigns promoting the prevention of HIV/AIDS cater to young people and leave out the growing number of older Ugandans living with the disease. As this older Ugandan man put it after attending a seminar with his wife on living with HIV/AIDS, "We thought before we were two, but we now know we are thousands."