Stephen Lewis Dares Canadians to Support Grassroots AIDS Projects in Africa

With the launching of the new "Dare to Remember" campaign, the Stephen Lewis Foundation is asking people to go beyond their comfort zones and do something personally meaningful to raise money for HIV/AIDS.

Lewis, Canada's former UN ambassador and now a professor of global health at Hamilton's McMaster University and co-director of AIDS-Free World, said the amount of money to fight the pandemic has diminished over the last year. Though support for his foundation has remained stable during the economic downturn, the overall situation is "ominous, tremendously worrisome," he said.

The campaign allows participants to set a fundraising goal and promote their plans by creating a personal Web page at www.adaretoremember.org. The foundation lists categories to get people thinking about what they hope to accomplish: Dare to Be Bold, Dare to Be Funny and Dare to Be Healthy. Participants can collect pledges for completing a triathlon, going vegetarian, or wearing their clothes backward, for example.

The campaign hopes to raise millions, said Lewis. The foundation's five-year fundraising target is $100 million (US $91 million). That amount of money would allow the organization to go from its current support of some 200,000 AIDS orphans to more than a million. "We actually think that it can be done," he said.

Lewis recently returned from visiting community-based projects in South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, and the Congo. While he was encouraged by the teamwork shown by foundation staff and community workers, he witnessed the consequences of sexual violence and rape after political unrest in Kenya and Congo. HIV is frequently transmitted during these assaults, Lewis noted.

Back to other news for September 2009