October 19, 2009

Stephen Lewis Foundation

- Canadians get wildly daring to help communities turn the tide of AIDS in Africa -

Toronto, October 19, 2009 – This week, Canadians coast-to-coast will do something daring as part of A Dare to Remember, a nationwide challenge to help communities turn the tide of AIDS in Africa. Launched by the Stephen Lewis Foundation (SLF), A Dare to Remember invites Canadians to perform personal dares, set fundraising goals and encourage friends, family and colleagues to sponsor them. All proceeds will help support communities in the 15 African countries that have been hardest hit by HIV/AIDS.

Canadians are being asked to do their dare, declare their dare or dare someone else during Dare Week (October 17-25), and then complete their dares by World AIDS Day, December 1st.

Celebrities and citizens alike across the country are performing a wide range of memorable acts, such as:

• Hip-hop artist k-os will return to his first job at The Bay’s Queen Street toy department in Toronto today and George Stroumboulopoulos will reveal his dare on CBC’s The Hour this week.

• Jack Layton, leader of the NDP, will busk in his riding at Danforth and Logan on Saturday, October 24 from 3-5pm.

• Calgarians will witness Olympic Gold Medal winner Duff Gibson walk 12 km on October 22 with a 20L jug of water on his head to honour the distances women and girls must travel every day to fetch water, firewood and access health care in Africa.

• In Vancouver next week, Simon Fraser University students will wear “I dare you to hug me” signs and give out hugs across campus and downtown streets, as one of many dares to raise funds.

• Montrealers will see McGill University students perform an “art attack” where participants will gather and form a human piece of art on the main campus lawn.

• In Charlottetown, the Katamavik youth group will perform Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” dance all over the city throughout the week.

• Staff at lululemon athletica in Banff will dare to do one thing a day that scares them. Dares include 100 consecutive sun salutations [that's me!], going vegan and working as a human mannequin in the store window.

“It’s remarkable to see the ingenuity and commitment people of all ages are showing across the country,” says Stephen Lewis, Chair of the SLF. “This isn’t just about doing something whimsical or novel, it’s about taking part in a national effort that will bring hope, life-saving services and critical support to thousands of individuals and communities across Africa. It’s about communities here standing in solidarity with communities thousands of miles away.”

To kick off Dare Week, Stephen Lewis performed his dare on CBC’s The Hour and sang “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” with Hamilton rock band The Arkells.

Other supporters who have already started fundraising include actors Natalie Brown (Sophie) and Amy Lalonde (Wild Roses) who are hosting a bake sale today at Toronto’s Union Station with fresh cookies made with honey they harvested during their dare to face their fear of bees. Romina D’Ugo (actress and top 20 finalist from last season’s So You Think You Can Dance Canada), Jim Cuddy (Blue Rodeo), Jake Gold (renowned artist manager and judge on CTV’s Canadian Idol), Ngozi Paul (star of Global TV’s Gemini-nominated Da Kink in My Hair) and Lorraine Segato (lead singer, Parachute Club) have all committed to fundraising and executing dares.

The official website (adaretoremember.com) offers the public 50 dare ideas and an opportunity to dare and sponsor their friends. Whether people choose to run a half-marathon, quit smoking, or take circus acrobatics lessons, the more daring the act, the more likely it will be to raise significant funds. Kristin Rowe, a woman in Nova Scotia plans to swim the English Channel in the spring!

On Friday, October 23, Hoax Couture and the Fashion Design Council of Canada will produce a fashion-forward closing night show featuring more than 25 of Canada’s top designers at Toronto’s LG Fashion Week beauty by L’Oreal. Kicking off at 9 p.m., a star-studded audience will experience the Dare to Wear Love show (www.daretowearlove.com), full of rich, eye-catching fabrics sourced from African communities who work with the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Designers include Lida Baday, Brian Bailey, Linda Lundström, Lucian Matis and many more. Dare to Wear Love organizers aim to raise $100,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

Proceeds from all daring acts will be used by SLF to support community-based organizations in 15 sub-Saharan African countries. These grassroots groups provide counselling and education about HIV care, prevention and treatment; distribute food, medication and other necessities; reach the sick through home-based health care; help orphans and vulnerable children access education and work through their grief; and support grandmothers caring for their orphaned grandchildren.

For more information about A Dare to Remember, or to register a dare, visit www.adaretoremember.com

The report said the world is tolerating a “shameful example of double standards,” since pregnant women in wealthier countries are given enough medicine to prevent their babies from getting the virus, allowing mother-to-child transmission to be virtually wiped out in the developed world, while it remains a massive problem in poorer countries.

In Cambodia, almost 90 per cent of HIV-positive mothers and babies are given no drug treatment at all, while HIV testing is so minimal that 84 per cent of pregnant women do not even know whether they have the virus.

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April 03, 2009 18:04

Article originally from the Alliston Herald.

Lying on the floor in a small circle may at first seem like an odd way to start a meeting, but for Grandmothers Embrace, the local chapter of Grandmothers to Grandmothers, it was a symbolic gesture of solidarity shared with other groups from across Canada and nations in sub-Saharan Africa.

Grandmother to Grandmothers raises funds and offers support for grandmothers in Africa who are raising children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic which has swept the continent.

The funds go toward the Stephen Lewis Foundation which is leading the way in turning the tide against AIDS in some of the hardest hit areas.

The solidarity action took place last week in eight Canadian cities and ten African countries.

At the beginning of the Grandmothers Embrace meeting at St. John's United church in Alliston on Wed., March 25 several participants laid down on the tile floor to represent the suffering and loss that has occurred in Africa.

Several other members then took their hands and raised them from the floor to symbolize lifting them from their individual suffering and offering them strength. They then danced as a group in an action that was inspired by a group of Ugandan grandmothers who use song and dance to overcome their grief.

"We are now changing the goal from easing the pain to turning the tide," said event participant Mary Abernathy. "There are now over 200 groups of grandmothers across Canada. Three years ago there were only four. Our group has been responsible for raising $30,000 by having other local groups participating."

The money is used for grass roots projects in Africa to provide food, health care, education, counseling and other essential support for communities in strife.

"If the money continues to arrive in Africa it can make a difference," Abernathy said. "Through solidarity we can help each other."

Updated: Fri Mar. 27 2009 17:16:02

From: www.ctvcalgary.ca

Calgary Catholic teachers have cancelled a yearly fundraiser for AIDS relief in Africa.

The move comes after a parishioner questioned Bishop Fred Henry about the funds being raised for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

"The main concern with the Stephen Lewis Foundation has been his position on birth control which is contrary to what the pope and the bishop have been teaching," says David Cracknell a spokesperson for the Calgary Catholic Teachers' Association.

Cracknell says the decision to cancel the fundraiser was a difficult one.

For the past four years, Calgary Catholic teachers have been raising money during lent to support the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

The organization supports women and children in Africa living with HIV/AIDS. It also supports the use of condoms.

Cracknell says once the bishop was approached he sent a letter encouraging the teachers' association to focus their efforts on other organizations.

Stephen Lewis says he finds the bishop's recommendations difficult to comprehend. He's harming grandmothers, he's harming women living with AIDS and all of them iving in Catholic dioceses, it just doesn't make sense," says Lewis.

Lewis says despite the bishop's suggestion to support other AIDS organizations, some Catholic teachers are still sending in private donations.

What Can You Do?

If you would like to donate to The Stephen Lewis Foundation through The Mountain Movement, please go here.

If you would like to sign a petition against the Pope, please go here.

An international medical aid agency warned Tuesday that Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis is growing and the country could soon see more epidemics.

Article originally found here: CBC News

The Nobel Prize-winning agency Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, called on both international donors and the Zimbabwean government to do more.

"You've all heard about the disastrous cholera epidemic," said Dr. Christophe Fournier, MSF's international president, who spent four days touring Zimbabwe.

"However catastrophic this epidemic is, it is only the most visible manifestation of a much broader crisis in the whole country. Actually the whole public health system in Zimbabwe is down, it has collapsed."

World Health Organization figures released Monday indicate 77,650 people in Zimbabwe have been infected with cholera, a water-borne disease, since August.

So far, 3,688 people have died from the disease, which causes severe diarrhea.

The country also faces food shortages, malnutrition, collapsed infrastructure, political violence, displacement within Zimbabwe and to neighbouring countries, as well as an HIV epidemic, MSF said in the report released in Johannesburg, South Africa.

There was no immediate comment from the Zimbabwean government.

Malaria could be the next epidemic, the group said, because malaria season is approaching and people cannot afford to take preventive steps such as using insecticide-treated nets.

"The situation in Zimbabwe is causing inexcusable suffering," Fournier said.

"Urgent measures must be taken to ensure Zimbabweans have unimpeded access to the humanitarian assistance they so desperately need. The Zimbabwean government must guarantee that aid agencies can work wherever needs are identified and ease bureaucratic restrictions so projects can be properly staffed and drugs quickly procured."

This week, a unity government formed between ZANU-PF and the main opposition MDC, although Robert Mugabe remains the country's president.

Manuel Lopez, head of MSF's Zimbabwe operations, said Tuesday that he feared international donors would be reluctant to donate funds to a government headed by Mugabe.

Last year, Canada imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe including a ban on export of arms and freezing the assets of top officials, accusing the regime of human rights violations.

In the past, Mugabe's allies have accused western countries of trying to use the cholera outbreak as an excuse to oust him, and have blamed Zimbabwe's problems on western sanctions.

Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate and faces acute shortages of most goods.

With files from Associated Press

Luc Montagnier said in Sweden he believes it is "a matter of four to five years" before a therapeutic vaccine to treat HIV infection is developed."

He did not elaborate as to why he believes scientists are close.

Scientists have developed lifesaving drugs that can inhibit the disease but there is no vaccine to prevent or treat HIV infection. Finding a vaccine has proved elusive in the past, with the most recent trials ending in failure.

However, a therapeutic vaccine would be a key step in fighting the virus, he said. A therapeutic vaccine would be given to people who are already infected, in order to lessen the impact of the disease while a preventative vaccine would, ideally, protect people from HIV.

So far, scientists have focused on drugs to fight the disease because they have been proving effective. In developed countries, AIDS has become manageable, rather than fatal, because of the drugs.

HIV was first identified 25 years ago but still poses difficult challenges. Scientists cannot explain, for example, why it causes the immune system to collapse.

Montagnier, together with other Nobel laureates, began arriving in Stockholm on Saturday ahead of a week of Nobel festivities that culminates with a lavish banquet and awards ceremony Dec. 10.

The 76-year old scientist shares one-half of the US$1.2-million prize with 61-year-old Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, also of France, for their research on HIV. The other half goes to Germany's Harald zur Hausen, 72, for showing a viral cause for cervical cancer.

Sweden's King Carl Gustaf will hand over the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Wednesday, along with the awards in chemistry, physics, literature and economics. The Nobel Peace Prize is presented at a separate ceremony in Oslo, Norway.

Pokrovsky says Russia still has no national policy on fighting AIDS.

Teams with charity label co-founded by Bono to help fight AIDS

NEW ORLEANS - Starbucks Corp. is trying to refocus in a tough economy as a company with a conscience, announcing a partnership with Bono's (RED) label on as it attempts to recover from a slowdown in consumer spending.

The partnership with (RED), co-founded by the U2 frontman, will donate a portion of the proceeds of selected holiday Starbucks drinks to the Global Fund to help raise funds for and awareness of AIDS in Africa, where the coffee company buys some of its beans.

The initiative, announced Wednesday at a Starbucks conference in New Orleans, is part of the company's "Shared Planet" initiative, meant to encourage greener, more community-minded practices within the company.

It is the latest attempt at transformation for Starbucks, which had expanded quickly but has now begun to see its sales and traffic decline. The company posted its first quarterly loss this summer and has been closing underperforming stores in the U.S. and Australia.

Howard Schultz, Starbucks' chairman and chief executive, said he does not anticipate any more store closures.

While store traffic was still lower in the fourth quarter, which ended Sept. 30, a slight improvement in the first few weeks of October may suggest, "perhaps, let's underline perhaps, we've bottomed out during the fourth quarter, but we're still negative," Schultz said.

The company is hoping to connect with increasingly thrifty consumers by being "highly relevant" in tough economic times and tapping into the "humanity" of Starbucks and its tradition of social awareness, Schultz said Wednesday.

Schultz believes the Seattle-based company is in a better position than others, having decided months ago to close 600 U.S. stores, open fewer new stores and cut jobs.

Tough times
In a statement late Wednesday, Starbucks said its same-store sales fell in its fourth quarter, which ended in September, compared to this year's third quarter. But October's same-store sales, or those at stores open at least a year, have "improved slightly" over the fourth quarter, due mainly to a higher average value per transaction, the company said.

Starbucks says it has a multiyear agreement with (RED). From Nov. 27 to Jan. 2, 5 cents from the sale of each Peppermint Mocha Twist, Gingersnap Latte and Espresso Truffle will go to the Global Fund. The company expects to generate millions of dollars. (RED) items will be also be available in thousands of stores after the holiday season.

Bono praised Starbucks for joining an effort that companies like Microsoft, Converse, Apple and Hallmark are already part of, particularly amid the economic turmoil.

"Here we are, talking about the economy tanking. People are saying, Maybe the world doesn't need more coffehouses. And what do you do? What does Starbucks do? You decide to give your money away," he said to thunderous applause from the thousands of store managers and others gathered at New Orleans Arena. "This is not charity. This is commerce."

More than 10,000 Starbucks store managers and others have been pitching in on community projects this week in New Orleans, which is still recovering from 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

Article originally found on msnbc and on The Associated Press.

Gurría said "ignoring increasing inequality is not an option."

Article originally posted here.]]> Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:10:00 EDT http://tmm.tigblog.org/post/508396 51.1666667 -115.566666751.1666667-115.5666667 http://tmm.tigblog.org/post/497071
We are very honoured that The Mountain Movement, and more specifically, Paul's walk across the South Island of New Zealand in Winter '07, has been featured in a book called "Expedition to the Edge: Stories of Worldwide Adventure." Author Lynn Martel first wrote about The Aroka Project for the Rocky Mountain Outlook and decided to include her story in her book, which was just released by Rocky Mountain Books (pages 290-294, photo on page 299).

The book will also be featured at the Banff Mountain Book Festival this year. A special thanks to Lynn for her dedication to mountain culture and bringing our stories of adventure to life!]]> Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:10:00 EDT http://tmm.tigblog.org/post/497071 51.1666667 -115.566666751.1666667-115.5666667 http://tmm.tigblog.org/post/487869 Canada is the first country to ship cheap AIDS drugs to Africa, but a morass of red tape continues to threaten humanitarian efforts.





ANDRE PICARD

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

September 25, 2008 at 10:19 AM EDT