There have been numerous appeals for a

There have been numerous appeals for a hugely meaningful global effort to fight HIV/AIDS, one of the most dramatically moving is that of Stephen Lewis, the UN's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, given to the luncheon meeting of the Rotary Club of Toronto, Canada, on January 9, 2004. The Australian AIDS Fund Incorporated and AIDS Information services is reproducing that speech on this website as a measure of our support for a special initiative - that Rotary International might take up HIV/AIDS as its next global challenge with the same magnificent spirit that it took on and helped shatter global polio. But the challenge is there for everyone and even the power of just one alone has been shown to move mountains and more. We will also seek Rotary International's President - Nigeria's Jonathan B. Majiyagbe (pictured left) for his response to Stephen Lewis's invitation.

We've acompanied this speech with a specially designed variation of the international 'red ribbon' insignia for HIV/AIDS simply using two human hands. It's the work of 25 year old Israeli artist, Shai Swissa, who offered it to us.

Mr Lewis's speech follows:

I want to begin with three anecdotes from which lessons can be drawn.

First: Not long ago, I had occasion to speak with an infectious disease specialist in New York City. She was telling me that she had followed the entire course of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, for its more than twenty-two years, and for the first fifteen years, what she remembers most vividly is sitting in shadowed hospital rooms, holding the hands of mothers as they watched their sons die.

And then she stopped talking, contemplatively silent for a moment or two, and added: you know, all my patients in treatment are flourishing today. They're gaining weight, feeling well, working, enjoying their families. In fact, I can't remember when I last attended the funeral of one of my patients.