The Compassion Cure
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Hairdresser-Humanitarian Connie Naber | By Leah Ferguson
Tanzania is an East African country that’s home to the famed Serengeti plains, Gombe National Park (where Jane Goodall’s and her chimpanzees reside), and 34 million people—nearly half of whom are undernourished. Despite the tourist destinations and safaris, Tanzania is still one of the most impoverished nations on Earth. One out of 10 expecting mothers will lose her baby. 10 percent of the people living on mainland Tanzania are infected with AIDS.
These statistics can be overwhelming. But a Cincinnati hairdresser saw the faces behind these statistics and decided to do something. After a visit to Tanzania, Connie Naber started an orphanage in Tanzania for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
Naber is a fresh-faced Midwestern woman who laughs easily and is eager to talk about her nonprofit, Karama Connection, which raises money for the St. Lucia Children’s Home she built in Arusha, Tanzania.
Leah Ferguson: What inspired your trip to Africa?
Connie Naber: I had taken one other trip to Africa before, but I was turning forty and in a funk. I thought that a trip might get me out of it. I had heard about short-term volunteer vacations on Oprah and then again on The Today Show. They’re sort of like missions but not affiliated with any church. You get to go and learn quite a bit about the culture by working with the people. I chose the Cross-Cultural Solutions program.
LF: Most people are afraid to travel to places like Africa and to be around people who are sick. What helped to shape
you into someone so fearless?
CN: I’m not sure I knew what I was getting into when I first went to Africa. My initial volunteer placement was at an educational agency, but AIDS in Tanzania is epidemic, so we went on countless home visits where people were sick or dying with illnesses complicated by AIDS. It’s impossible not to have compassion for people who are dying. Since I know that you can’t get AIDS from touching or hugging someone, I was able to reach out to the people in these homes and be a kind of role model for other people in the community. It sounds simple, but just a hug can make an enormous difference.
LF: How did you decide to get involved?
CN: I originally visited St. Lucia Hospice in Tanzania just to get some photos. Some friends in my group had asked me to take some pictures for their web site, so I stopped at St. Lucia. St. Lucia was an AIDS hospice for adults, but there were kids there who were the children of the adult patients. I met a woman there named Winfrida, who told me about how she and her husband had started this place with their own money. As I spent more time there, I observed how they didn’t even have the basics. There can be tremendous costs of caring for people with HIV and AIDS. Nutrition becomes a major factor in the long-term health of people living with HIV.
After a few more visits, I asked Winfrida what happened to the kids when their parents die. She told me that sometimes they end up staying at St. Lucia because their families don’t want them or can’t take care of them because they’re HIV-positive. If they end up in other orphanages, they also don’t get good care partly because of fear about the transmission of the disease and partly because the other care providers don’t know how to care for them.