Yahoo – AFP,
24 Oct 2014
Washington (AFP) - Rock star Elton John teamed up with the Obama administration Friday to launch a new $7 million fund to provide access to HIV services in South Africa.
Washington (AFP) - Rock star Elton John teamed up with the Obama administration Friday to launch a new $7 million fund to provide access to HIV services in South Africa.
The fund
will be established for men who have sex with men and transgender people in the
nation, the only African country where same-sex marriage is legal.
The British
pop music icon lent star power to the State Department when he met with US
Secretary of State John Kerry in his private offices to discuss the roll out of
the project, part of efforts to create a world free of AIDS.
"We
all work together to ensure that in this day and age, nobody gets left behind
no matter what their sexuality, their color, or whatever. It's important,"
John told reporters.
"If
people get left behind, the disease will get left behind, and we will face an
enormous uphill battle."
The singer
and his partner David Furnish were in the US capital ahead of being guests of
honor at the Human Rights Campaign annual gala on Saturday.
The Elton
John AIDS Foundation is teaming up with the US President's Emergency Plan for
AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to expand HIV-related services as part of a new South
African program called Health4Men.
Kerry said
the project would "help bring additional assistance to people and help us
meet this goal of an AIDS-free generation."
"We're
going to continue to work together to bring this help to all those folks,
particularly in the LGBT community, who need this particular assistance,"
Kerry added, using an acronym for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
people.
John's
foundation has raised more than $300 million to support AIDS programs in more
than 50 countries.
"We
should be living in an AIDS-free world, and people, no matter who they love,
who they are, should have a right to be AIDS-free," John added.
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