My letter to Justin Trudeau for support for ONE in Canada. Money matters for prevention and cures for women and girls. Let's end the fight together!

Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland,

I think it is important to end preventable diseases to help build a world that supports good communities, good health and making good choices through education and financial security.

From a child, I have seen how having access to vaccines and drugs can save lives.?In Rhodesia we would have visiting government nurses assigned to schools to give us our required vaccines and in towns and cities access to doctors was not easily available.?Like in Canada there were long wait times and getting access to a bed and doctor was hard.?The result was that diseases that could have been caught early were not and lives were lost.?Simple measures at home like burning a mosquito coil, using essential oils that are also insect repellents and having a mosquito net and a fan blowing in the summer helped with mosquitos, also not having standing water left where mosquitoes could gather and breed.?Simple interventions could lead to saving lives in addition to having the drugs available.

Canada should support funding for treatable diseases because we live in one world and as the Covid pandemic showed, diseases can spread fast through animals and humans leading to loss of lives and destroying economies and communities.?Without financial stability and security things deteriorate and become worse.?The financial component is important especially for women and girls and those impacted most which tend to be single women.?My experience in Canada is a testimony to that.?Married sisters and extended family and the church do not help me financially when I need it in Canada and I have done so much for all of them but there is never any money for me when I need help, and the same was true when I was in Zimbabwe.?It is good to give but also to receive when hard times come.?Without my help when I was living with them, my sister and her family would have gone hungry and without food, have been unable to pay bills and have money for petrol.?I have done a lot to help my mother and all of my family and I do not deserve to be left to go on welfare and without any financial support after over 20 years of being in Canada.?My situation and story is not uncommon for single women here and in Africa.?The financial piece, education and not being ostracized and treated like a child with mental health problems who cannot make good choices should not be allowed.?Even as a child my grandparents and my Dad encouraged me to make my own choices. I stand with Bono and the ONE campaign independent of my sister and any other member of my family from who I had no support financially or emotionally. I stand for courage and use my anger to change things. I stand alone.?From my family being allowed to interfere in my healthcare, travel and education and church, I demand that things change for myself and other Africans in Canada and in Zimbabwe.?There has to be give and take, understanding of how values impact lives including being shaped by the church.?It is ironic that my sister and her family got support and were able to make arrangements with the police and the church while I do all the volunteering and helping and get mistreated and threatened with arrest for standing up for my rights to live and move and have my being and travel independently without having to inform people who do not even talk to me like my sister. It started in childhood in my family and it has never stopped.?I do good and get punished after getting permission to do what is right and supported by authorities and elders in the family.?So too other African and racialized single women go through the same disrespect and mistreatment and if we speak up, we are punished. This should not have happened to someone like me, I should have been supported by you, by the church and the family. My mental health breakdown was preventable.?The road to recovery is long. So too treatable diseases like Malaria, TB and other diseases need informed choices including aversions to drugs like I have to chloroquine.?I would like to know why everyone supports my sister and Uncles instead of supporting me as a single woman, and help them instead of valuing me and supporting me and telling me to go on welfare and not sponge off others. I did not deserve to be hurt, neither do the single women in Africa and other women and girls trying to build up their lives. My sister and her family and my mother have enjoyed Canada, they have travelled, organized family holidays and occasions and excluded me yet when they need me they expect me to be accommodating and loving. I made a choice for my health to separate myself from them, because I was honest and they went after me trying to make me the problem when I was not in the name of love. It was just that they did not want the financial burden and putting me in a psychiatric centre and leaving me there would get rid of the problem for them.?If I could pull through what I was put through, other single women can too with love and support, with jobs and access to people who can help open up management opportunities to us that pay well.?Whenever I ask my sister for help the answer is no, or there is silence yet she is permitted to contact and interfere with my life and ensure that I do what I am saying I will do.?I am not a child. This should not be permitted.?I am a 50 year old woman still fighting for my human rights just like women in Africa.

Thank you for hearing my message and taking it seriously.

Please acknowledge my email with a simple: this was read.?Then act to change things.

Yours Sincerely,

Belinda Fernandez (CHRP, CHRL)

Toronto, ON