19/01/07 -
World TB day 2007 is on March 24th. To mark the occassion the TB Survival
Project is launching a new writing competition. As regular users of the
website will know, we have a section where people who have experienced
having TB/MDR-TB can send in their story and have it published online. The
result: people with TB/MDR-TB who are feeling isolated can read about
other's experience and discover that they are not the only one who have, or
are, battling this terrible disease. It's a great resource that we want to
build on.
Literature is scattered with the work of what were then called "consumptive"
writers. Keats, Chechov, the Bronte Sisters, George Orwell and D.H Lawrence
to mention but a few. The writer Katherine Mansfield who died in 1923 of
tuberculosis said in her letters;
"...All I am doing now is trying to put into practice the 'ideas' I have had
for so long, of another and far more truthful existence. I want to learn
something that no books can teach me, and I want to try and escape from my
terrible illness. That again you can't be expected to understand. You think
I am like other people - I mean, normal. I'm not. I don't know which is the
ill me and which is the well me. I am simply one pretence after another.
Only now I recognise it..."
It captures the essence and hopelessness of her situation. Today there is
hope, there is a cure for TB/MDR-TB. Unlike Mansfield and others who
perished there is no need today. Where there is access to treatment and when
people adhere to it, there is life after TB/MDR-TB. But admitedly the
treatment journey and the experience of having the disease can be hard.
We want you to write about your experience of TB/MDR-TB and send it in to us
for publication online. Submissions can be sent by clicking on the "Leave
Story" button on the left hand side of this page. The piece should not be
more than 1000 words long. It should say where you are from. The story
doesn't have to be printed with your name on it. It can be anonymous if you
wish. All you have to do is state whether you wish to remain anonymous and
clearly state that you are happy for your story to be published. Your story
will be professionally edited, so don't worry about the standard of your
English. We shall sort all of that out.
What's possibly in it for you? There is one prize of a digital camera, if
you are judged our winner. It shall sent to the winner, anywhere in the
world, as soon as he or she is announced on World TB Day on this website.
Entries need to be submitted before March 17th. Entries will be judged by
panel of people working in the TB field. The judges decision is final. We
look forward to reading your stories!
Stop TB - WRITE NOW!
