AIDS Orphans Stole her Heart
Written by Jan Jaben-Eilon Thursday, December 09 2010
Snapshot: Janine Maxwell
At age 24, Janine Maxwell founded what would become a highly successful marketing company in Canada. For 16 years, she led Onyx Marketing Group, representing many of the most recognized companies in North America. But when terrorists attacked the United States in 2001, her priorities changed. She now directs a faith-based humanitarian organization which reaches out to help millions of orphans in Africa left in the wake of AIDS. She and her husband, Ian, lead Heart for Africa, a nonprofit organization based in Atlanta that focuses on hunger, orphans, poverty, and education in Africa. Based on her own experiences, Maxwell wrote her first book, It’s Not Okay With Me, depicting the tragedy and heartbreak in Africa, and in early 2010 she released her newest book, Is It Okay With You?
Through Heart for Africa, Maxwell leads hundreds of people each year to do field work in Swaziland and Kenya. Heart for Africa’s latest endeavor is the purchase of 2,500 acres in Swaziland called Project Canaan. She also founded HOW Jewelry (Helping Orphans and Widows) as a way to provide employment for women in Kenya. These women make jewelry that is then sold in the United States; the profits are used to support their programs. Maxwell has two children, Spencer and Chloe, who spend their summer breaks with her in Africa.
Womenetics: Sept. 11, 2001 changed many of our lives, but how did it take you to Africa?
Janine Maxwell: I was in New York City on 9/11, and my husband was on an American Airlines flight to Chicago. Our two young children were on the other side of the border in Canada, where we lived. I slid into fear and depression, wondering what the meaning of life really was. I had one of the largest marketing companies in Canada with clients like Disney, Kellogg, Kraft, Duracell, had a big house, nice cars, traveled the world, great husband, the perfect life. But what really was the true meaning of all I had?
Womenetics: Connect the dots for me. You went from marketing to a nonprofit organization helping women and children in Africa?
Maxwell: As I questioned the meaning of life I bumped into an old college friend who was working with street children in Africa. I decided to go with him to see what was going on. I discovered millions of AIDS orphans living alone, hungry, on the streets of major cities, eating out of garbage cans, being raped every night as sex slaves for older boys. I looked them in the eye, some of them 5 and 6 years old. It was as if they asked me, “Is it OK with you that I am living like this while you live the way you do in Canada?” Although they never said those words, I heard them anyway.
Womenetics: Did you close your marketing company, Onyx Marketing Group?
Maxwell: Yes. After spending time with dozens of these children, many of them young girls (9 to 13 years old) who were having sex in order to buy food for their younger brothers and sisters I had no choice. I came home and couldn’t focus on coming up with creative new ideas to sell sugar drinks and cereal. There were an estimated 12 million AIDS orphans then with a prediction of 43 million by 2010. I didn’t feel I had time to wait and sell my company. The children were being left alone, 30,000 children starving every day from hunger/malnutrition. I had to act then and there.
Womenetics: What is your latest book about?
Maxwell: The new book tells stories of ordinary, everyday people who read the first book and/or traveled with us to Africa and said, “It is not OK with me, either,” and then moved into action. Stories range from a 75-year-old man serving every year while fighting for his life from cancer to a young man who served in Kenya with us, came home and was in a tragic car accident that left him a paraplegic, and still he fought to go back and serve the children of Kenya.
Womenetics: You’ve taken thousands of people to Africa through your organization. How did you connect with these people?
Maxwell: We have had 5,000 plus people travel to Africa in the past five years. Many of them have come to us after reading my first book. Others have had friends go and serve then come back changed forever. Others through hearing me or other volunteers speak in schools, churches, Rotary Clubs.
Womenetics: How much time do you spend in Africa now?
Maxwell: I am there about 20 weeks per year: Ten weeks in the summer with our children and then commuting back and forth the rest of the year. I wish I could be there full time.
Womenetics: You are a wife and mother. How does your family deal with your travels?
Maxwell: They are very supportive. When we are together, we are together. When I am away, my children know that I am helping children who don’t have a mother or advocate. And since they know so many of those children, they think of me as helping their brothers and sisters in Africa. They share me.
Womenetics: Are you constantly experiencing culture shock when you go back and forth between Atlanta and Africa? In other words, is it hard to readjust back home, in such a different environment?
Maxwell: Yes, it is always a shock. Mostly coming back to the United States and Canada and realizing that people really don’t care about African children living on the street and saying that they can’t help when they have multiple houses, cars. That is the shocking part.
Womenetics: Why did you decide to start Project Canaan?
Maxwell: The population of Swaziland dropped from 1.1 million in 2005 to 950,000 in 2010, due to death from HIV/AIDS-related illnesses. There are 15,000 orphan-headed households, where the eldest member of the home is no more than 15 years old. Although we were thankful for the three children’s homes we were partnering with in Swaziland, we were overwhelmed by the size of the need. Also, 65 percent of all Swazis depend on international food programs to eat. There is a 70-percent unemployment rate in the country. Project Canaan is 2,500 acres of land that will provide employment, training, large scale growth of food, and eventually a home to hundreds or thousands of children who have no one to care for them.
Womenetics: You and your husband both work for Heart for Africa. What do you do to get away from the heartbreaking work you do?
Maxwell: Good question. We don’t do that very well at all. The work is all encompassing. We do spend time with each other (date night, Sunday as a day of rest) and we aren’t very “social” anymore, but we don’t take breaks as we should. Hard to do when children are still living on the street.
Womenetics: How might Womenetics readers be involved with Heart for Africa?
Maxwell: We invite every Womenetics reader to go to www.heartforafrica.org and click on TRIPS. Come and join us for an 11-day service/volunteer trip that will allow them to see for themselves. For those who can’t go, then please give (money) so that we can continue the work. We are willing to do all that we can, but we can’t do it alone. We need help from any and all who have a heart for the children or Africa who have no hope for their future.
Jan Jaben-Eilon was a founding staff writer of the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Since then, she has been the international editor of Advertising Age magazine and has written for such publications as The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Washington Journalism Review, and Consumer Reports. She is the author of soon-to-be-published (There is) Life After Cancer. Jan and her husband have homes in Atlanta and Jerusalem.
