Author Archives: Jane Philpott

About Jane Philpott

Dr. Jane Philpott is the founding chair of Give a Day to World AIDS which has raised over 3.5 million dollars for those affected by HIV in Africa. Dr. Philpott is Chief of the Department of Family Medicine at Markham Stouffville Hospital and President and Lead Physician of the Health for All Family Health Team in Markham, Ontario. She has helped develop a Global Health curriculum for the Markham Family Medicine Teaching Unit. Dr. Philpott is part of the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration (TAAAC) that is supporting the introduction of a post-graduate training program in Family Medicine in Ethiopia. From 1989 to 1998, she practiced medicine in Niger, West Africa and developed an educational program for community health workers.

I won’t give up!

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Two years ago in my World AIDS Day message, I talked about K’naan and how I wanted to write a rap song about HIV. This year, I’ve picked a song from a different artist that expresses my sentiments about the ongoing challenge of the HIV pandemic. It’s a song by the brilliant Jason Mraz and the theme is this… I Won’t Give Up!

Caring about the issue of HIV can be discouraging at times. This has been a particularly emotional week. Each year, around this time, UNAIDS releases a World AIDS Day update. As you read the report, you could end up feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of this pandemic that continues to wreak havoc for individuals, families and communities across the globe. Despite the daunting statistics and the personal tragedies that I have witnessed, I remain an obstinate optimist – using the report to look for the signs of positive progress. I note for instance that new HIV infections in children are 43% lower than in 2003, before the Give a Day movement had started. This news brings tangible evidence that the elimination of new infections in children is possible.

But this week carried with it some unique emotional low points. Just as we celebrate that 8 million people in the world now have access to anti-retroviral therapy, we realize equal numbers of people – who need those medications right now to stay alive – don’t have access. And Canadians have reason to feel particularly disheartened this week because the initiative to fix Canada’s flawed regime for sending low-priced generic medicines to less-resourced countries was defeated in the House of Commons. We walked away from an extraordinary opportunity to help save lives.

…which brings me to the Jason Mraz song that speaks to the need to persevere, saying…

“I won’t give up

I don’t wanna be someone who walks away so easily,

I’m here to stay and make the difference that I can make

Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use the tools and gifts we got, yeah, we got a lot at stake”

Indeed when it comes to the HIV pandemic, there is a lot at stake. In 2012, no one should live or die with AIDS. The need to act is as urgent as it has ever been in the 30 years since this pandemic was described. We cannot give up. We cannot walk away so easily. We must respond somehow.

That’s why I’m proud to remind you about Give a Day. It is a movement of ordinary Canadians who recognize World AIDS Day each year and they respond in a practical way. These concerned global citizens give one day’s pay to organizations that put those resources to good use in the communities most affected by HIV. To date, Give a Day has raised over $3.5 million for the two recipients that we recommend: the Stephen Lewis Foundation and Dignitas International.

Please join me in expressing your commitment to the people and places most affected by HIV. On December 1, World AIDS Day, please Give a Day. In the words of Jason Mraz…

I won’t give up.

“HIV: How I see it” by Dr. Yelshaday Teklu

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I’ve been hearing about HIV as long as I can remember. Back then, my mindset towards HIV was sublimely unapologetic. The media and people around me demonized it so very much that I was scared to even think about it for a moment. Whatever was told, the reality was much different. Sometimes, I wonder how deceitful it is to listen to one side of a story and not be able to verify but make hasty conclusions.

Ethiopia is one of the countries in the world with a staggering number of HIV-positive people. The number of children who have lost their parents to HIV is also just below a million. HIV has cast its psychosocial and economical burdens for over two decades now. Thanks to a massive awareness campaign and various interventions carried out by the government and NGOs, the statistics are now falling. The stigma and discrimination practiced against HIV-positive citizens has affected the lives of these individuals greatly. Myths about the transmission of HIV and what it does to the body were so widespread and the public was influenced by these myths so much that HIV-positive people were having a hard time adjusting themselves and would suffer a wide range of problems.

Now the public has come to understand that people living with HIV can pretty much lead normal lives if they properly adhere to their medications and practice healthy lifestyles. Despite ongoing efforts, there are still wrong attitudes among some individuals. It is also usual nowadays to see a great number of HIV-positive people speak out and share their experiences. So, this means they have the belief they won’t be alienated by society anymore.

Addis, the capital city where I live, has the most overwhelming numbers of HIV-positive people as compared to the rest of the country. It has a population of about 5 million and every day one million people go in and out of the city. This is actually one of the factors that greatly contributed to the growing HIV epidemic in Addis. Recently though, it has been reported that only 5 out of 100 individuals are infected with the virus while this statistic was about 9 out of 100 not long ago. People are now realizing how serious this is and have started to avoid the risk behaviors that lead to contracting HIV. Equally important is the fact that the public has positively altered its outlook towards HIV-positive people. The “us versus them” attitude is no longer something that I see in my everyday life nor is it something I hear people say.

As someone who is in the medical environment, I have more expert knowledge on HIV from both a public health and a biologic perspective than the average person. I am fortunate enough to closely listen to what HIV-positive people have to say. As doctors, we are not only expected to treat the physical illness but the psychosocial malfunction associated with it. I couldn’t help but understand the pain they suffer as they walk me through their day to day lives. This has greatly helped me understand HIV. My mainstream perception about them is also derived from mass media awareness programs. I especially owe this to a radio program that is aired thrice a week called “Yibekal” literally translated as “It’s enough!” The way the program is put together is what endowed it with the power to change attitudes.

I volunteer in the public health activities of Ethiopian Medical Students’ Association (EMSA). I know the power of changing how people think about a particular situation and the importance of prevention as much as treatment. It has always been said that when we change the way we look at something, it changes. We’re all products of our mindsets. Therefore, the power of awareness-creation can never be underestimated. HIV is not something poor nations can fight only by themselves. When we celebrate this year’s World AIDS Day, we have to keep in mind that the role each of us plays counts and we have to renew our promises to contribute our shares throughout our lives. The HIV pandemic has taken its tolls for the past 30 years and has inflicted more damage in the developing nations than on anyone. I hope December 1 will be the day we vow to fight HIV together as one because this is the only way we can eradicate it from the face of the earth.

This guest post is contributed by Dr. Yelshaday Teklu. He is a General Intern at the Addis Ababa University, School of Medicine. Dr. Yelshaday is SCOPH Publications Head at the Ethiopian Medical Students’ Association and he is SCOPH African Regional Assistant for the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yelshman.

 

AIDS is not over

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I walked past a poster this past weekend about a fund-raising walk in Toronto to raise money for the AIDS Committee of Toronto. The poster was emblazoned with the slogan AIDS IS NOT OVER!

That poster made me stop in my tracks. I could not walk past it. Of course I know that AIDS is not over. I think about AIDS on a pretty regular basis. I have dozens of patients with HIV in my clinical practice just north of Toronto. I am getting ready to launch the 2012 “Give a Day to World AIDS” campaign. I am fully aware that 34 million people in the world live with HIV.

But when I read that slogan yesterday -“AIDS IS NOT OVER” – I had an instant flash of alarm. The alarm didn’t arise from any new awareness of the facts of the pandemic. The alarm came from a stark realization that AIDS has indeed left the bright spotlight of our collective consciousness. The slogan is a plea to all of us to maintain the action that is imperative if we are genuinely aiming for a world without AIDS.

It seems that we can easily lose focus on an issue if it does not immediately threaten us, or promise huge benefits to people we know, or strongly appeal to own sense of injustice. If you are reading this blog, you understand the perspective needed to keep a focus on HIV and AIDS.

Read more on my personal blog about how we can respond to the reality that AIDS is not over. And get ready for the 2012 Give a Day campaign. To be sure, AIDS is not over. But together we are working for the day that it will be!

Reflections on the eve of the 19th International AIDS Conference

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I was just finishing my first year of medical school in June of 1981 when five cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia were reported at three hospitals in California. This collection of cases would later be considered to mark the start of the story of HIV and AIDS in North America.

Now, more than 30 years later, I realize that the varying phases and the shifting mood in the evolving story of HIV in the world have been mirrored somehow in the changing seasons of my own career. Today, on the eve of the 2012 International AIDS Conference in Washington DC, I reflect on the seasons of the pandemic. It seems to me that while the global response started with a period of discovery, this was followed by a long spell of despair. But in more recent years it appears that the much of the global community has entered a phase of determination – a firm resolve to bring the story of HIV to its rightful end.

DISCOVERY

I remember the period of immense discovery through the 1980s and early 1990s because it occurred during the years that I too was on a steep learning curve in the acquisition of medical knowledge. In 1983, right about the time the virus that causes AIDS was first isolated, I was a keen final year medical student studying in the hills of western Kenya. That year was my first introduction to the beauty of the continent of sub-Saharan Africa. The years of dramatic discovery related to HIV enjoyed one of the most promising moments in the mid-1990s when it was confirmed that with the use of a combination of anti-retroviral medications, HIV infection could be treated – bringing hope that HIV infection would not inevitably lead to premature death.

DESPAIR

But the reality of the next phase of the pandemic turned out to be anything but hopeful. By the end of 1997, it was estimated that 30 million people were infected with HIV. Enthusiasm about the promise of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) was blunted by the reality of the exorbitant cost of these regimes. The rate of new infections was dramatically higher than the number of people that could be started on treatment each year. The world began to come to grips with the devastating social and economic impact that the pandemic would have – especially in the parts of the world that are most severely affected by HIV. The earliest years of the 21st century were a time of deep despair for those familiar with the unprecedented atrocities caused by the global spread of this infection.

However, on the topic of seasons of despair, a very wise man said: “Often, the most discouraging moments are precisely the time to launch an initiative.  At such times people are searching for a way out of their dilemma.” Those remarkable words come from the autobiography of Nelson Mandela – who celebrated his 94th birthday this week!

Thus it happens that in this period of despair, many new initiatives were launched in an effort to find a way out of the dilemma caused by AIDS. In fact, the Give a Day movement was launched in 2004 when Canadians concerned about HIV were literally in the depths of despair. It turned out to be a great time indeed to launch a new idea about how Canadians could respond to the pandemic. My personal response to potential despair has always been the impulse to take action.

DETERMINATION

Now we look back on almost the past decade to see that great progress has indeed been made. Remarkably there are now more than 8 million people living with HIV who are receiving antiretroviral therapy in low- and middle-income countries. Today on the eve of the 19th International AIDS Conference, there is great enthusiasm once again that the end of AIDS is in sight. The determination to address the pandemic echoes far and wide. The extraordinary Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank said very clearly this week that “we can end this epidemic”! Interestingly, he goes on from there to talk about using the lessons from the AIDS response to build the systems necessary to address other massive global problems such as poverty and hunger.

We have to maintain the momentum of this determination if we are going to see the end of AIDS. It is not impossible. The science exists. As always our greatest needs are social mobilization plus public infrastructure plus political will. Let us determine together to gather those ingredients so that AIDS will indeed be defeated!

 

 

In pursuit of a dream: 11 reasons to give

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Let’s wrap up Give a Day 2011 with 11 outstanding reasons to give. Follow these links to read on…

Reason #11 GIVE For the 34 million people living with HIV

HIV is treatable and preventable.  No one should die because of AIDS. Give a Day donations help work toward a world without AIDS.

Reason #10 GIVE As an expression of our united will

Dr Danyaal Raza describes the power of the combined voice of those who give.  It is about more than the money. Dr Raza reviews our need to speak up on the topic of HIV/AIDS “to effect lasting change at a time when the fight against HIV/AIDS is at a turning point.”

Reason #9 GIVE To eliminate new HIV infections among children by 2015

11-year-old Nigerian Ebube Sylvia Taylor, writes “No child should be born with HIV; no child should be an orphan because of HIV; no child should die due to lack of access to treatment.” Through support of community-based responses to HIV, Give a Day donations will help realize this essential goal.

Reason #8 GIVE To promote awareness and decrease stigma associated with HIV

Give a Day is a learning organization. There is always more to learn about HIV. The more we learn, the less we can be confused and misled by stereotypes and stigma.  Learning together opens our minds to see life from new perspectives and can help us to care for one another more effectively.

Reason #7 GIVE Because millions need antiretroviral treatment NOW!

Dr Tim O’Shea describes his work in Uganda and describes the contrast between impressive progress in the distribution of life-saving ARV treatment and the remaining reality of millions who still lack treatment “largely for the lack of funds.”

Reason #6 GIVE To support innovative action-oriented HIV research

Smart research is one of the reasons community-based HIV programs become more effective every year to enhance treatment and prevention.

Reason #5 GIVE To light a fire

Give a Day is about even more than giving and learning.  A good education leads to action. William Butler Yeats, the Irish poet (and later politician), said “Education is not filling a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” We want to light a fire through Give a Day.  We want that fire to burn brightly, to show a vision of a new and better future for the people and places affected by HIV.

Reason #4 GIVE To demonstrate a spirit of solidarity

If you look through the Give a Day blog posts, you see people from many sectors of society who have joined in the effort.  Here are young lawyers in Ottawa showing that they care and challenging their peers to give generously.

Reason #3 GIVE To maintain hope for a better world

Hundreds of high school students became involved with the Give a Day campaign this year, through not-so-trivial contests, speeches, donation-drives and ribbons of hope.  Young people are inherently hopeful.  May their hopes be realized for a better and healthier world.

Reason #2 GIVE To work toward a world without AIDS

Dr Winnie Siu reminds us that “an AIDS-free world will one day be achieved through – and only through – the synergy of our collective contributions.”

Reason #1 GIVE Because life slips away

The number one reason we press on is because everyone deserves the opportunity for a long, healthy and meaningful life.

Today is the last day of 2011. Martha Nussbaum says “The pursuit of a dream requires dreamers: educated minds that can think critically about alternatives and imagine an ambitious goal.”  Our ambitious goal is a world without AIDS. If you have not already done so, please give one day’s pay today to make this dream come true.

Because life slips away, would you give a day’s pay today?

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“I shall do this, not because I am noble or unselfish, but because life slips away… Therefore I shall try to do what is right, and to speak what is true.” (Alan Paton, “Cry, the beloved country”)

Let’s start with the bottom line:  I believe it is right to care about HIV.

I’m not generally predisposed to bouts of melancholy. In fact I’m often accused of being inexplicably optimistic about most endeavours I undertake. But every year, in the closing days of November, as the Founder of Give a Day, I have to fight against a temptation to feel discouraged. Our teams work tirelessly throughout the year doing all that we can with our available resources to broadcast the story of HIV and the havoc it inflicts on the world. But as World AIDS Day approaches, I am fraught with regret that I have not been able to do enough.

This year, my distress is more pervasive than ever. AIDS activists around the globe are responding with shock, despair and anger over news of calamitous cuts to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Dr Adrienne Chan of Dignitas International writes “I have had a knot in my stomach since the announcement was made official regarding what this means for the 300,000 patients started on antiretroviral therapy in Malawi by the government.” Added to the frustration over the Global Fund cuts is the reality that charitable giving in general remains low among Canadians. Likewise Give a Day donations so far are considerably lower than they were at this time last year.

So why do we persevere with the Give a Day challenge?

We press on because everyone deserves the opportunity to live with health and dignity. We press on because 6.6 million people are now receiving treatment for HIV infection. Give a Day donations contribute to making that number grow. We press on because 1000 babies are born each day with HIV. Those infections can be prevented and treated. Give a Day donations support community organizations that do just that. We press on for countless other reasons, whether backed by statistics or simply pleas for social justice. But it all comes down to this. It is right to care about HIV. And Give a Day is a good way to show that we care.

I appeal to you today, World AIDS Day 2011, to continue the good work we are doing together. Would you please take the time to make a donation to support people and places affected by HIV?  Our recommended recipients are the Stephen Lewis Foundation and Dignitas International.

Life slips away. Would you please give a day’s pay today?

“We need the best of many – not of just a few… We must strive for excellence.”

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Stephen Lewis, Jane Philpott, James Fraser

This morning Stephen Lewis was the keynote speaker at our Hot Talks event.  After his powerful address, I asked the audience to do 3 things: donate, educate, activate.

The 1st goal – to donate – is the most measurable and perhaps the simplest step to take. The results are priceless. Clearly one of the essential aims of the campaign is to raise money for great recipient organizations – the Stephen Lewis Foundation and Dignitas International.

A 2nd goal of Give a Day (GAD) is to educate or “raise awareness” about HIV in the world. And this actually thrills me as much as our fund-raising success.  We keep people talking about important global social issues related to the theme of HIV. Give a Day educates us. And education is so critical – it’s what GK Chesterton calls the “soul of a society”.

Beyond GAD’s challenge to donate & educate is a 3rd goal – to activate. I hope GAD will inspire you to do even more than giving and learning.  A good education leads inevitably to action. Wm Butler Yeats, the Irish poet (and later politician), said “Education is not filling a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” I want to light a fire with this campaign.  And I’d like that fire to burn brightly, to show a vision of a new and better future for the people and places affected by HIV.

48 years ago today, I was a toddler living in snowy Winnipeg Manitoba. On this day 48 years ago, my mother was in our Winnipeg kitchen making a 3-year-old birthday cake for me. Her work was interrupted when she heard on the television that President John F Kennedy had been shot. For our society, it remains one of the most memorable days in modern history. A great man and incomparable leader had his life brutally cut short.  I think about the Kennedy family each year on November 22. I wish I had known the parents of John F Kennedy.  I often wonder: what were the ingredients that inspired the Kennedy siblings to be such leaders – lights and fires – for their generation? But they did more than just lead themselves; they called on others to take up the tasks of the day.  Less than four weeks after President Kennedy was shot, his brother Bobby wrote a new Foreword for a memorial edition of John’s book “Profiles in Courage”. The words written by Bobby Kennedy 48 years ago are relevant to our task today:

“The energies and talents of all of us are needed to meet the challenges – the internal ones of our cities, our farms, ourselves – to be successful in the fight for freedom around the globe, in the battles against illiteracy, hunger and disease.  Pleasantries, self-sustained mediocrity will serve us badly. We need the best of many – not of just a few. We must strive for excellence.”

I like to emphasize this point after Stephen Lewis speaks because his matchless speaking skills can be a little intimidating. Even in a confident crowd, many of us may feel inadequate and ill-equipped in comparison.  But it takes more than the actions of Stephen Lewis to combat the forces that propagate the AIDS pandemic. What did Bobby Kennedy say? We need the best of many – not of just of few. We must all strive for excellence. Strive is an action verb. To strive means to put your whole & considerable force behind this effort.

I hope you are already quite convinced that we should do our part to address the realities of HIV in the world. If so, you are not alone. Let us donate. Let us educate. And let us activate all the resources within our reach to strive together toward a world without AIDS.

What does “solidarity” mean to you?

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Last year, a group of Give a Day (GAD) volunteers gathered to discuss the essence of the GAD movement and to think about how we could describe it in a few words.  After talking about why we “give a day”, we came up with the tagline, “Global solidarity – Local solutions”.

Since then, I hear that the word “solidarity” causes some confusion and misunderstanding.  What do you think of the word “solidarity”?

Some of us are old enough to remember the mass protest in Poland in 1980 under the leadership of Lech Walesa.  The movement took the name “Solidarity” to describe its demands for the right to form a free trade union and the right to strike. Our use of the word “solidarity” is better explained in another way.

To me, solidarity is the deepest expression of community spirit.  Solidarity is very closely connected to the concept of “Ubuntu”, an African philosophy that has been translated: “I am what I am because of who we all are.”

Solidarity reminds me of the concept of “collective efficacy” which is well described in Helen Epstein’s book, “The Invisible Cure”. Epstein’s book reviews the common features of communities who have most successfully worked together to respond to HIV. She notes:

The key to their success resided in something for which the public health field currently has no name or program.  It is best described as a sense of solidarity, compassion, and mutual aid that brings people together to solve a common problem that individuals can’t solve on their own.  The closest thing to it might be Harvard sociologist Felton Earls’s concept of “collective efficacy” meaning the capacity of people to come together and help others they are not necessarily related to.

In the scientific world, an object is solid if the particles within it are very closely bound together.  So if we as a global community are “solid”, it means that we move together.  What affects one of us affects all of us. This evokes the classic quote of Dr Martin Luther King Jr who said:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Let me know what “solidarity” means to you.  If I knew that the “solidarity” tagline caused more confusion than inspiration, then perhaps it should be reviewed.  But until then, I’d say it well describes the sentiment behind why I give a day.

Will you join us in an act of pragmatic global solidarity?

Do you want to help now? If so…

Around December 1, I hope many will give a day’s pay in recognition of World AIDS Day.

Here are some other ways you can help…

  1. Share this. Tweet this.
  2. Follow us on Twitter.
  3. Like us on Facebook.
  4. Join our mailing list.
  5. Engage your community or workplace in a Give a Day campaign.
  6. Plan a harambee.
  7. Leave a response and let us know what you think!

What’s a primary care doctor like me doing in a vertical response like this?

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If you’re involved in primary health care or global health, you may have heard that primary care is all about “horizontal” programs.  Those of us who live and breathe the wonders of primary care regularly cite the benefits of health care that is broad and comprehensive. We even point to evidence that shows how a focus on primary care results in better health outcomes at lower costs that is more equitable and accessible.

I believe in the benefits of primary care with all my heart, soul and mind.

So how can I simultaneously devote so much time and energy to something like GAD that seems clearly based on “vertical” interventions focused on a single issue like HIV?  What a good question!

Well, my first line of defence would declare that even a dedicated primary care doctor can recognize that there must sometimes be an exceptional emphasis on certain issues.  HIV is one of these. I remember former UNAIDS Director, Dr Peter Piot, who repeatedly declared the exceptional nature of HIV. That always resonated with me. HIV is exceptional because of the sheer numbers of people affected.  (By this measure, other illnesses such as tuberculosis would also qualify as exceptional.) HIV is exceptional because, more than almost any other infection, its spread is driven by the social determinants of health (economy, education, gender). Piot used to describe how HIV has “revealed the fault lines of society”.

But my other line of defence in any accusation about the validity of focusing on a vertical program comes from recognition that solving the problem of HIV in the world requires the very essence of what primary care is all about.

Addressing HIV requires public infrastructure and strong health systems along with broad-based educational and economic solutions.

Countries, regions and communities that have successfully reigned in the impact of HIV have done so through great public health systems with the aid of excellent primary care.

Gregg Gonsalves said this in Mexico in 2008:  Without continuing sustained focus on AIDS treatment, many millions of the poorest and most marginalized people in the world will die, period. And without breadth, not only will AIDS treatment be incomplete, but we will miss the greatest opportunity in history to build functioning health systems in some of the poorest countries of the world.

Finally, the organizations to which GAD recommends donations (Stephen Lewis Foundation and Dignitas International), do their remarkable work for people affected by HIV at the community level using the very principles on which primary care depends (including engaged communities and patient-centered care).

So I will continue to advocate on behalf of those affect by HIV. I will continue to ask everyone to give a day’s pay on World AIDS Day (December 1) in response to the exceptional issue of HIV.

As we address HIV we must use the principles of primary care to build the public health capacity that will have lasting impact on the communities most severely affected by this scourge.

What do you think? If you believe in primary care, will you join me in recognizing World AIDS Day by giving one day’s pay to one of GAD’s recommended recipients?

And while you’re at it, here’s how you can help now!

  1. Join us in giving one day’s pay on World AIDS Day, December 1!
  2. Share this. Tweet this.
  3. Follow us on Twitter.
  4. Like us on Facebook.
  5. Join our mailing list.
  6. Engage your community or workplace in a GAD campaign.
  7. Plan a harambee.
  8. Leave us a comment, a question or a note of encouragement.

If you had a thousand dollars…

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Recently a kind relative gave $1000 to each of our kids (aged 21, 19, 16 and 10) with the directions that it was to be donated to a cause of their choice.

This started a long and interesting discussion about what cause each would like to support.  Some of the options they considered were the Canadian Cancer Society, the Ontario Rett Syndrome Association, the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health, or the Mennonite Central Committee work to provide food aid for Somalia.

The Globe and Mail has a fantastic special feature this week with some excellent articles about how philanthropy can be both smart and good.

It’s a big deal to donate $1000.  You need to know it will be well spent.  Around December 1 (World AIDS Day) lots of Canadians make donations of one day’s pay.  For some, the amount turns out to be $80 or $100.  For some it is $1000 or more! How do these people know their donation will be well used?

Give a Day (GAD) recommends 2 great recipients and I personally give to them for a variety of reasons.

I believe my money will be well used by Stephen Lewis Foundation and Dignitas International because:

  1. I know and trust their leaders.
  2. I’ve watched them grow from small Canadian organizations responding to HIV.  They have held true to their original purpose, values and approach.
  3. I know the money gets to the people who need it.  I’ve visited some of the projects supported by the Stephen Lewis Foundation and talked to the women and families who are recipients of support.
  4. I know how much they need my support to fulfil their mandate. For all our hard work, it is still a struggle to raise money for the cause of HIV.  We cannot lessen our advocacy for this cause.

I’m delighted that my children can make a contribution this year to a cause of their choice.

Around December 1, I hope many will give generously in recognition of World AIDS Day.

How about you? How can you help now?

  1. Share this. Tweet this.
  2. Follow us on Twitter.
  3. Like us on Facebook.
  4. Join our mailing list.
  5. Engage your community or workplace in a GAD campaign.
  6. Plan a harambee.
  7. Leave us a comment, a question or a note of encouragement.