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Photo exhibition 'AFEW: giving hope to many'

AFEW's photo exhibition, titled 'Giving Hope to Many', will be displayed at the Eastern Europe and Central Asia AIDS Conference.

The exhibition houses the work of AFEW specialists in Russia and Central Asia, and attempts to show, through artistic means, the people affected by HIV: both those who need help and those who provide it.

The photographers exhibited are Adriaan Backer and Liza Shurik. The photos of Adriaan Backer, a well-known Dutch photographer, show the lives of vulnerable groups in Central Asia - i.e. injecting drug users, commercial sex workers, patients from AIDS centers and tuberculosis clinics, and prisoners.

AFEW staff member Liza Shurik - an American of Russian descent - has a degree in photography and is the laureate of prestigious student photo contests in the U.S. She chose a difficult topic for her photo session: the life of an HIV-positive girl in a Russian province.

AFEW invites you to visit the exhibition and looks forward to your thoughts and opinions.

The number of children born to HIV positive mothers in the Russian Federation before 1997 stood at only 60 but has since increased to 5 974 as of 1 July 2003 (Russian Federal AIDS Centre).

Many of the young HIV positive mothers struggle to keep their own troubled lives going. For that reason, they often feel forced to leave their babies to the care of the maternity clinics and hospitals.

Hospital No. 7 in Moscow is specifically equipped with 60 beds to look after children born to HIV positive mothers until their HIV status is known.

Other hospitals, such as the city hospital of Orechovo-Zoejevo in the Moscow region, do what they can with the little resources at their disposal to look after children abandoned by HIV positive women.

Images from both hospitals were provided by photographers Ilse Frech and David Gillanders.