The news about HIV/AIDS infection in many African nations is depressing at best, but more frightening when seen at ground level. In June, a small delegation of AFT representatives spent two weeks in Zimbabwe meeting with teacher union leaders to discuss ways to cooperate in an anti-AIDS program for teachers. In Zimbabwe, the rate of infection may be as high as 35 percent among the adult population. It is estimated that nearly 40 percent of teachers are infected. Dennis Sinyolo, president of the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA), gloomily summarized the situation saying, "in three or four years 30 percent of our 50,000 members will be dead."

Zimbabwe teachers are not alone in this struggle against the deadly AIDS plague. In Zambia, the number of teachers who died of AIDS in 1998 equaled two-thirds of the teachers trained that year. In Malawi, the government trains two new teachers for every one lost to AIDS. In Ivory Coast, every week of the school year, five teachers die of AIDS or related infections.

The life expectancy of HIV-positive teachers in Zimbabwe is six to eight years. Without funding--both for expensive drugs and an adequate health care delivery system--infected teachers are facing a certain death sentence. Meager salaries and scant benefits force teachers to continue working as long as they can, even up to the very last days of their lives.

The impact of death and illness on the struggling economies and education systems of Africa is staggering. Schools, already hard-pressed for resources, are facing severe teacher shortages. Education budgets are being squeezed to the limit by the rising costs of absenteeism, death benefits and the training of replacement teachers.

Many governments are being forced to reduce teacher-training time and to find other ways to compensate for the loss of experienced teachers. Educators dying of AIDS in Zimbabwe are being replaced either by unqualified temporary workers or new graduates, many of whom are also infected.

In partnership with ZIMTA, the AFT is spearheading an effort to address the devastating impact of AIDS on teachers in the Southern African nation. The project is part of a regionwide campaign by Education International designed to help its African members combat the spread of HIV/AIDS within the African teacher corps. As AFT president Sandra Feldman noted: "At this moment in history, helping in this struggle against AIDS is the most important way American teachers can help African teachers and students."

The AFT, funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department, is working with ZIMTA to educate its members to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. The project will assist ZIMTA in developing AIDS prevention teaching materials and training to reach its 53,000 members.

The partnership with the Zimbabwe teachers is a pilot project that will be tested and then replicated with teachers unions in other African countries. The AFT is also planning to launch an education campaign to build membership support for this important initiative. AFT locals and members soon will receive information concerning how they can extend that hand of solidarity.

The photos you see here show images of the children and teachers who are active in the work to fight the spread of this modern-day plague. These are the images of hope rather than despair.

When the Hardee (Fla.) Education Association and its school district agreed several years ago that teachers should be directing professional development, the teachers knew exactly where to go--the AFT's Educational Research and Dissemination program (ER&D).

The 20-year-old union program is proving to be an invaluable tool for the system's preK-12 teachers. Ever since the district put teachers in charge of professional development, Hardee teachers have attended ER&D institutes on a variety of subjects--from the foundations of effective teaching, to dealing with anti-social behavior, to best practices in reading and math instruction--to enhance not only their instructional and classroom management skills but to raise student achievement.

The district's administration is responding. The union and the Hardee district together sent four teachers to the 2001 ER&D summer institute. Vicky Conerly, a first-grade teacher and previous ER&D attendee, was one of them. The joint endeavor "validates what teachers do," Conerly says.

"I look at it like lawyers look at their professional area and doctors look at their professional area," she notes. "They have other lawyers and doctors telling them good practices. That is what ER&D does, and our district has acknowledged that."

The ER&D summer institute, held in Linthicum Heights, Md., attracted more than 280 participants from 89 locals. More than one-third of the teachers attending were sent by their local union, and for many, like Conerly, the trip's costs were shared by the union and district.

Since taking charge of providing professional development, the Hardee Education Association has held a dozen workshops, in the summer and during the school year, attended by more than 200 teachers.

"The strategies [taught] in ER&D are universal throughout the grades," Conerly says. "That is what is really so neat."