[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 44, Number 45 (Monday, November 17, 2008)]
[Pages 1412-1415]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the 2008 Bishop John T. Walker Memorial Dinner

November 12, 2008

    Thank you, Frank, and thanks for this great honor. I accept it 
gratefully, but it ought to be offered to the American people.
    Laura and I are thrilled to be with you. I am always a better man 
when my wife is by my side.
    I want to thank Jules Coles, the president of Africare; Maria 
Walker, the widow of Bishop John Walker. I was thinking coming over, 
``Let's see, I'm George Walker Bush''--[laughter]. I don't know; what do 
you think? [Laughter] Anyway, Madam--Ms. Walker, thank you very much for 
joining us.
    I want to thank the members of the Africare board of directors for 
this honor, but more importantly, for the work you do in Africa.
    I thank my friend, Congressman Don Payne, who's one of the leading--
[applause]--the leading authorities in the United States Congress on 
African affairs. I'm pleased members of my administration have joined me 
and Laura here tonight.
    Henrietta Fore, Administrator of USAID; the head of the Millennium 
Challenge Corporation, Ambassador John Danilovich; the U.S. Malaria 
Coordinator, Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer--thank you for coming, Admiral.
    I'm pleased to be here with Lloyd Pierson, President and CEO of 
African Development Foundation; Ron Tschetter, Director of the mighty 
Peace Corps.
    Laura and I have the privilege of hosting Bill Frist and his wife, 
Karyn, at the White House tonight. Make sure you make your bed, Senator, 
but we thank you for coming.
    I want to thank members of the diplomatic corps. We are proud you 
are here tonight.
    I'm in pretty good company when it comes to this Humanitarian 
Service Award. Jules said, ``Man, you're hanging out with some good 
folks.'' Last year's award winner went to--recipient was President Ellen 
Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, a great woman. Last year's dinner speaker 
was, in fact, my wife Laura. And frankly, knowing both women, I am not 
sure which is a harder act to follow.
    I really am glad Laura is here because our work in Africa--and I say 
our collective work in Africa--is a labor of love for us. Laura and I 
have been to Africa a lot. She has worked in an effective way to help 
promote education and health. Our girls, Barbara and Jenna, have done a 
lot of work to help promote dignity on the continent of Africa, 
particularly with those folks living with HIV/

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AID. I am proud of their work, and I'm proud of the work of millions of 
our fellow citizens. It is amazing to me that when you go to Africa, the 
number of Americans you meet who are living out the universal call to 
love a neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourself, who are hearing 
that admonition that to whom much is given, much is required. America--
[applause].
    I appreciate those who support Africare. I thank you for your work 
in caring for orphans in Uganda or fighting polio in Angola or 
resettling refugees from Sudan. I thank you for the work you do in 20 
nations on the continent of Africa. And in that work, you are carrying 
out the vision of the man we honor, Bishop John Walker.
    When he was a young clergyman in the sixties, he traveled to Uganda. 
He was welcomed in the homes of people who needed his message of love. 
That experience convinced Bishop Walker that Africa's greatest treasure 
is not its spectacular scenery or natural resources, but it is the 
determined spirit of its people.
    Bishop Walker understood that disease and poverty and injustice are 
great challenges. But he also knew that the people of Africa have the 
talent and ambition and resolve to overcome them. And frankly, that has 
been the heart of our policy toward Africa. We do not believe in 
paternalism; we believe in partnership, because we believe in the 
potential of the people on the continent of Africa.
    I've had a lot of uplifting experiences as the President. And one of 
the most uplifting experiences has been to witness a new and more 
hopeful era dawning on the continent. Over the past 8 years, it's been 
moving to watch courageous Africans root out corruption and open up 
their economies and invest in the prosperity of their people. The United 
States stands with these leaders as partners and friends and allies in 
hope through the work of the Millennium Challenge Account.
    On my trip to Africa this February, I joined President Kikwete of 
Tanzania to sign a 5-year, nearly $700 million Millennium Challenge 
compact, which will help build up Tanzania's infrastructure. And as part 
of this compact, Africare is helping to extend electricity to homes and 
businesses in some of the most remote areas of the country. My fellow 
citizens need to hear what President Kikwete said. He said that the 
Millennium Challenge program is a ``source of pride''--``making it 
possible for the people of Tanzania to chart a brighter future.''
    Notice he didn't say, making it possible for the American people to 
chart a brighter future for Tanzania. He said, making it possible for 
the citizens of Tanzania to chart their own future.
    It is uplifting to see people freed from hunger and thirst. And I'm 
proud of the fact that the American people have supported programs to 
help feed tens of millions of people on the continent. And I appreciate 
the work of people here in Africare for helping on that work. Your 
organization has partnered with our government to address the lack of 
clean and safe drinking water. This is one of the greatest challenges to 
development in African nations, and through your efforts this evening, 
you're helping to overcome it.
    On a way--one way our country is working with African governments is 
to provide safe water through private-public partnerships, and one such 
innovative program is called the PlayPumps Alliance. Mr. Dale Jones of 
PlayPumps International is with us today. You probably may not have 
heard of PlayPumps Alliance--it's kind of hard for me to say. [Laughter] 
But here's the way it works: PlayPumps are children's merry-go-rounds 
attached to a water pump and a storage tank, and so when the wheel 
turns, clean water is produced. Laura and Jenna helped to get one of 
these new pumps moving during their visit to a Zambian school. As the 
wheel spun, children on the merry-go-round shouted and laughed with joy. 
At the same time, they helped to keep their friends in good health.
    There are innovative ways to express the compassion of the American 
people on the continent of Africa. And I want to thank PlayPumps 
International for being one of the innovators.
    On my trips to Africa, it has been uplifting to see people 
fulfilling their God-given potential, thanks to a good education. The 
African Education Initiative was mentioned, but a part of that 
initiative is the fact that we've

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trained 700,000 teachers, distributed more than 10 million textbooks, 
and provided hundreds of thousands of scholarships to help girls go to 
school.
    In Liberia, I met a woman named Deddeh Zaizay, who told me that her 
husband had abandoned her and her three children because she was 
illiterate. Deddeh is learning to read. She proudly declared in front of 
the President of Liberia that she plans to go to college. And she has 
set her sights high; she wants to be the President of Liberia one day.
    I do not see how you can have a hopeful life if your mother and 
father is dying of HIV/AIDS or your baby is dying needlessly because of 
a mosquito bite. And so we have taken a strong stand against deadly 
disease. Through the malaria initiative, we've partnered with African 
nations to dramatically reduce infection rates and save lives. Laura and 
I saw the good work of the American people and the good work of Africare 
at firsthand in Tanzania's Meru District Hospital. New mothers bring 
their babies into the hospital; they have them tested for malaria and 
HIV. Nurses distribute bed net vouchers, where mothers can use to buy 
insecticide-treated bed nets.
    Laura and I met the mothers. I cannot tell you the expression of 
pride they had on their face when they held their babies up and said, 
``My baby is healthy.'' Nothing more hopeful than to see the joy on a 
mother's face, realizing that her baby has escaped the scourge of the 
deadly disease of malaria. I thank all those in this audience and around 
our Nation who have helped this malaria initiative become robust and 
effective.
    And then, of course, there's the extraordinary story--stories 
related to PEPFAR. We launched the initiative in 2003; only 50,000 
people in sub-Sahara Africa were receiving antiretroviral treatment. 
Today, as was mentioned, we support treatment for nearly 1.7 million 
people in the region. Africare is making vital contributions to this 
effort. And with your help, people across Africa now speak of a Lazarus 
effect: Communities once given up for dead are being brought back to 
life.
    Laura and I have seen this miracle with our own eyes. I'm sure many 
of you have as well. She traveled to South Africa in 2005; Laura visited 
a PEPFAR-supported clinic for HIV-positive pregnant women. There she met 
Kunene Tantoh. When Kunene first arrived at the clinic, she virtually 
had no immune system left. But with the treatment she received, Kunene 
survived. Not only did she survive, 2 years later she was in the Rose 
Garden at the White House. She brought with him--she brought with her, 
her son, Baron. She wanted Laura and me to see an HIV-free baby. Baron 
is a reminder of the many lives that have been touched and saved by the 
compassion of the American people. And he represents the bright and 
promising future awaiting the folks in Africa.
    In our visits to the continent, we have been overwhelmed by the 
affection and gratitude that the African people show to the American 
people. Oh, a lot of people are out there saying, ``Why should I care 
about Africa? What good does it do me, Mr. President, for our government 
to support Africa?'' Well, I'll tell you what good it does. One, it is 
in our national security interest that we defeat hopelessness. It is in 
our economic interest that we help economies grow. And it is in our 
moral interest that when we find hunger and suffering, the United States 
of America responds in a robust and effective way.
    I thank Africare for being on the leading edge of this 
transformative series of initiatives. I hope you feel as good about your 
contribution as I feel as good about our Government's contribution to 
doing what's right. I'm honored to receive this award. I am honored to 
be the President of the most compassion, greatest nation on the face of 
the Earth. God bless you, and God bless the people of America and 
Africa.
    Thank you all.

Note: The President spoke at 7:19 p.m. at the Washington Hilton Hotel. 
In his remarks, he referred to W. Frank Fountain, chairman, Africare; 
former Senator William H. Frist; and Dale E. Jones, chief executive 
officer, PlayPumps International.

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