Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Starfish Principle: Drawing Purpose From South Africa's Aids Crisis, Lauren Vickroy

Honors Theses

I had come to South Africa in search of a group, organization, or person whose story I could bring back home and use to forge a connection between Americans and the seemingly incomprehensible, hopeless, and overwhelming situation faced by the people of South Africa from the AIDS epidemic. The epidemic in South Africa is among the worst in the world as more people live with AIDS there than in any other country. No magic pill or amount of foreign aid will quickly and neatly shore up decades of social, political, economic, and psychological underpinnings that have paved the way for …