We Also Have A Dream
By Team TBTV
Martin Luther King fought and died for social justice, raising his voice for the rights of the oppressed. A life of struggle to turn a dream into reality. In 2006, over two million people died from a similar social injustice - tuberculosis. TB is disease of poverty which decimates poor, overburdened and voiceless communities. Back in 1963, scientists made TB a 'curable' disease with the development of a number of 'miracle' drugs. Yet while the wealthy countries breathed a sigh of relief, the killer bug has continued to plague the most marginalized around the world. Since 1963, when MLK delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech in Washington, perhaps 100 million people have perished from TB, slowly and painfully, without many voices being raised to stop this terrible death toll rising each year. We are a group of people with TB, TB-HIV, and MDR-TB (drug-resistant and usually fatal TB) who have come together to fight against the injustice of this disease. We also have a dream in which people with tuberculosis and their communities can exercise their rights to access drugs, diagnostics and dignity. A dream of when those most affected can have a say in the health programs and services on which their lives depend, breaking a silence that has been institutionalized through the efforts to 'control' tuberculosis patients over the last fifty years. Having dreams is easy, but for those on the bottom, turning them into reality requires sacrifice, sweat and struggle. For TB patients, long kept suffering in the shadows, silenced and neglected, the word is being spread "don't moan, organize." TBTV.ORG is a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) run by and for people with tuberculosis, and we are pleased to announce the relaunch of our website as a tool for the TB Community - an amplifier of the voices of those who believe that two million preventable deaths is a global injustice that must be confronted, now. Our principles of speaking out for justice and demanding accountable representation led us to being blacklisted and driven 'off-line' in 2005. Forced underground, we worked in the forge, and have crafted new tools for mobilizing our communities such as the Patients' Charter for Tuberculosis Care (PCTC), endorsed by the WHO as an essential element of the Stop TB Strategy. Now, we're back again, louder and clearer, to turn dreams into realities. MLK has shown the way forward.