Stephen Lewis Essay

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Stephen Lewis is the founder and board chair of the Stephen Lewis Foundation. He is a professor at Ryerson and McGill University. He is also the co-founder and co-director of an AIDS-free World in the US. Stephen Lewis was the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from June 2001 to 2006. Lewis was Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF at the organization’s global headquarters in New York from 1995 to 1999. He was Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations from 1984 to 1988. Although Stephen Lewis never finished university, he was always active in politics. Lewis was the leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party from 1970-1978, which is when he became leader of the Official Opposition. In 2003 Stephen Lewis was awarded a …show more content…

The Stephen Lewis Foundation provides care for women suffering from HIV/AIDS, assists orphans and other children affected by AIDS, supports grandmothers caring for orphaned grandchildren, and supports groups of people living with HIV/AIDS. More specifically, the foundation provides education and counseling about HIV prevention, care and treatment; distributes food, medication and other necessities; provides holistic home-based care for the very sick; helps children orphaned by AIDS gain access to education and cope with their grief; and support the grandmothers, who are overwhelmingly the caregivers for their orphaned grandchildren. The extent of the epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is shocking: more than 24.5 million cases of HIV/AIDS, 76% of those newly infected between the ages of 15 and 24 are women, 2 million die of this disease a year, and there are more than 12 million orphans as a result of AIDS. The Stephen Lewis Foundation supports grassroots projects in Africa, such as co-operatives and community gardens run by grandmothers or children in areas where the parent generation is wiped out. These projects run on very small amounts of money but make a big difference to their …show more content…

Death, impoverishment, discrimination and suffering were the effects of this pandemic. However, in response, grassroots organizations have been providing multiple forms of assistance such as healthcare, education, income generation, and emotional and psychological well being. This together has been helping individuals and communities recover from their devastating losses significantly. Before the foundation had even been officially established it had already been responded to by financial donations. The donations totaled $275,000 by the time the first cheques were mailed out for projects in June 2003. Currently the foundations website cites that it has disbursed over $80 million to more than 1100 initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa, including Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. With enough resources, the Stephen Lewis Foundation is providing lasting change across the African continent. However we cannot accomplish all that we need to do without working together. It is eminent that it takes a community to make a difference, but when dealing with an issue as big as this, it takes the global village. Whether we are directly effected by the problem or not, we have the responsibility as humans to respond and help. We cannot simply shrug our shoulder because it is a difficult issue and occurring

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