Acces to Life

For the past 25 years, the AIDS pandemic has inflicted excruciating pain upon humanity, having ravaged the lives of millions of people around the world. Over the past few years, however, a quiet global revolution has enabled millions infected by HIV to live healthy lives through the free antiretroviral treatment program initiated by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. In Access to Life, eight of the world's leading photojournalists, all members of Magnum Photos, follow 30 individuals in nine countries before, and four months after, they began the antiretroviral treatment, documenting the transformative effect on their bodies, their lives, and the lives of their families. Here are the faces, voices, and stories representing millions of people who would otherwise be dead if not for access to free life-saving drugs. But there are also the stories of those individuals for whom treatment came too late-showing how the fight to bring access to AIDS treatment is still a difficult one. The Access to Life campaign, which includes an international traveling exhibition, functions as an axis for artistic, educational, and political responses to AIDS treatment. The exhibition will travel to Mexico City, Paris, Berlin, and Rome in 2009 and 2010. Photographers include: Jonas Bendiksen (Haiti), Jim Goldberg (India), Alex Majoli (Russia), Steve McCurry (Vietnam), Paolo Pellegrin (Mali), Gilles Peress (Rwanda), Eli Reed (Peru), and Larry Towell (South Africa and Swaziland). DESMOND TUTU (preface) is the former Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a member of the UN advisory panel on genocide prevention and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. Professor JEFFREY D. SACHS (essay) is Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor on the Millennium Development Goals.