It is part of an effort to put HIV/AIDS awareness, especially how it affects Africa, back on the Canadian political awareness landscape.

Wairimu Mungai (at left) and Netty Musanhu (right) visited Sault College Tuesday as part of their Stephen Lewis Foundation “Winnipeg to Windsor Solidarity Tour.”

The Sault Ste. Marie visit was one of only two Northern Ontario stops on the tour, which runs from May 1 to May 15.

The Foundation is named after well-known Canadian politician, academic, broadcaster and diplomat Stephen Lewis, who served as the United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from 2001 to 2006.

The Foundation has long enjoyed the support of Canadian labour unions in its ongoing campaign for social justice and women’s equality around the world.

Mungai is Executive Director of WEM Integrated Health Services in Kenya.

Musanhu is Executive Director of the Musasa Project in Zimbabwe, a group dedicated to combating gender violence against women in Zimbabwe’s communities.

34 million people worldwide were afflicted with HIV/AIDS, according to 2010 figures.

24 million of those were in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“We would be talking about this all the time if this were happening in North America,” stated the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Joe Cressy, who is accompanying the two women on their tour.

“We need to put awareness of the HIV/AIDS pandemic back on the Canadian agenda.  In the media, our schools, communities, our places of worship.”

Both Mungai and Musanhu told their local audience Tuesday the high rate of HIV/AIDS in Africa has occurred partly because of rampant sexual abuse of women in that part of the world.

It is estimated that among young women in Sub-Saharan Africa, one out of six has been raped.

Only 7 million of 24 million HIV/AIDS patients in Africa are receiving medical treatment.

Both women said there are indeed laws in place against rape in their countries, but those laws are not strictly enforced by police.

Many police officers, they said, tend to dismiss reports of rape and categorize rape victims as sexually-promiscuous females who only bring sexual violence on themselves.

Still, there are stories of hope.

Because many HIV/AIDS victims are struck down with the disease between the ages of 15 and 40, many African grandmothers, who have lost their adult children to the disease (and who now battle health problems of their own that come with age), bravely care for and support their surviving grandchildren.

The grandmothers, supported by the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Grandmothers Campaign, work hard to raise money to feed and clothe up to as many as 15 of their grandchildren.

The Foundation has provided financial resources to the Grandmothers Campaign and other initiatives to help feed, clothe, educate, provide proper housing and beds, HIV testing, medical care, and counseling to surviving grandchildren.

To date, $184 million has been raised by the Foundation with the help of labour unions and individuals.

“The fight against HIV/AIDS,” said Mungai, “is not in vain.”

Those wanting to help may go to the Stephen Lewis Foundation website and make an online donation, unionized workers may contribute through their union, or community members may start up their own grandmothers’ group to help African grandmothers through the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

Protecting African women from sexual violence would help ease the spread of HIV/AIDS there, a Sudbury audience was told this week.

"We have high levels of violence against women in Zimbabwe," Netty Musanhu' (correct spelling with apostrophe), the executive director of the Musasa Project, based in Harare, said in an interview.

She said around one in six women in Zimbabwe has been raped in her lifetime.

Women in Zimbabwe also have a high HIV infection rate, which is often linked back to sexual violence. Musanhu' said preventing gender-based violence would also slow the spread of HIV/AIDS.

"We know our experiences and we are here to share those experiences," Musanhu' said. "We are the face of HIV and gender-based violence."

Musanhu' and Wairimu Mungai, the founder and executive director of WEM Integrated Health Services, based in Nairobi, Kenya, were in Sudbury as part of the Solidarity Tour, which is making its way across Canada.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation, which has worked with grassroots organizations to help combat the HIV pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2003, has organized the tour to get HIV/AIDS in Africa back on the Canadian agenda.

Around 1.2 million people in Zimbabwe have HIV/AIDS and only about half have access to treatment.

There are 34 million people in the world who have HIV/AIDS and 24 million of them are in Africa. While the disease can be managed with new antiretroviral drugs, many Africans still do not have access to the lifesaving medication.

Mungai has shared her experiences as a frontline worker with Canadians. Mungai's organization provides holistic care to people who carry the AIDS virus and also teaches their families how to care for loved ones who have been affected by the pandemic.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation works in collaboration with WEM Integrated Health Services and provides funding so it can achieve its goals. It has focused its efforts to work with African organizations that have women in leadership roles.

"Prevention and treatment are important, but continued care, to ensure those who are affected can come back into the mainstream, is very important," Mungai said.

Mungai said accessibility to life-saving drugs in Kenya is not adequate. She has come to Canada to share her perspective on the realities in her country.

Joe Cressy, director of campaign and community outreach, Stephen Lewis Foundation, said the organization has worked to connect Canadian grandmothers with African grandmothers, who are often the last remaining caregivers for children who have been orphaned due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The foundation has raised $18 million for that campaign and has funded more than 700 grassroots initiatives in 15 African countries.

Mungai and Musanhu' shared their stories at the OPSEU Union Hall in Sudbury. They will continue to tour a number of Ontarian cities and will end the tour in Windsor on Tuesday.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation hopes to raise public awareness of the HIV and AIDS pandemic in Africa with a tour that stopped in Winnipeg today.

The foundation's Solidarity Tour is stopping in eight cities through May 15, with all the other stops in Ontario.

Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger, along with members of the foundation and three AIDS front-line workers from Africa, gathered outside the legislature on Friday to kick off the tour.

Netty Musanhu, the executive director of the Musasa Project in Zimbabwe, said while the number of patients with HIV and AIDS has gone down, there is still much work to be done.

"There's been a reduction but … 14 per cent of the population is still infected with HIV," she said.

"That number is unacceptable … and we still need to pay attention to HIV."

An estimated 24 million people in Africa are HIV-positive or have AIDS, but only seven million people are being treated, according to the foundation.

Organizers of the tour say they believe the AIDS issue has fallen off the international agenda.

The tour aims to introduce Canadians to the "inventive and effective approaches that have been pioneered by grassroots African organizations" to address the issue, according to the event's website.

The tour will stop in Toronto, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, London, Niagara Falls, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Windsor.

"When one part of the human family is under siege, the privileged part must respond."

This was Stephen Lewis’ clarion call for the world to wake up to the reality of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa.

It’s been 30 years since the start of the pandemic; in the span of history, 30 years seems hardly worth a mention. But in the span of the AIDS pandemic, 30 years is a generation lost.

The numbers can be overwhelming — 30 million have died of AIDS globally; 35 million people are currently living with HIV, and of those, 24 million live in sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 60 per cent of them women. Meanwhile, only seven million people in sub-Saharan Africa are on treatment and almost 15 million children have been orphaned by the disease.

But, numbers don’t tell another side of the story.

On the front lines of the pandemic, all across Africa, grassroots organizations are standing together as leaders in their communities. They are breaking the stranglehold of silence and stigma, and providing essential health, education and housing support to people living with HIV and AIDS. They are forming networks and mentorships to turn the tide of AIDS at the community level.

From home-based health care to support of grandmothers and the orphaned children in their care, from feeding programs to music and art therapy that enable children to express and manage their grief, from income-generation initiatives to community libraries — grassroots organizations are driving the response to the AIDS pandemic in ways that are innovative, sophisticated and effective.

These courageous organizations have shown they are the experts, leading the way. But, they cannot — and should not — do it alone.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation is proud to be their partners. In 10 years, we’ve distributed more than $84 million to more than 300 organizations in 15 countries, involving tens of thousands of women, men and children, in scores upon scores of communities.

In Canada, the Stephen Lewis Foundation has been supported by more than 100,000 Canadians who make individual donations, take part in the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign, organize fundraising events in their schools and communities, and participate through their unions.

But, 30 years into the pandemic, HIV and AIDS has fallen off the international and Canadian radar. Both governments and media now focus almost entirely on the global economic recession, political instability and the omnipresent threat of terrorism. A human crisis of this magnitude, however, should not be pushed off the front page. Thirty years into the pandemic and it’s time to put the AIDS pandemic back on the Canadian agenda and re-engage the concern of Canadians, young and old.

That’s why the Stephen Lewis Foundation is bringing three front line African experts to be part of the Solidarity Tour this month, with its first stop in Winnipeg Saturday. The tour provides a forum for our African partners to tell their stories, share their expertise and talk about their challenges and triumphs in dealing with the ravages of AIDS in their communities and workplaces.

Please join us. See what the face of change looks like from front line African experts. Share in the exchange of ideas and experiences. Together, we can put the AIDS pandemic back on the agenda in Canada.

The Winnipeg launch of the Solidarity Tour begins at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in Centennial Hall, University of Winnipeg.

Janet Solberg is a senior adviser with the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

 Three African experts on HIV will speak in Hamilton later this month, as part of a tour by the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

Canadian humanitarian Stephen Lewis started the foundation in 2003. It combats AIDS in Africa through collaboration with community-based organizations in 15 countries.

This will be its first Solidarity Tour, which aims to raise awareness of the fight against AIDS with presentations from African experts. It starts May 1 and it will run until May 15. The Hamilton stop is May 10.

“We actually have a lot of support through the Grandmothers to Grandmothers program and lots of supporters who live in and around the Hamilton area,” said Keely Wallace, community outreach officer with the foundation.

Hamilton was chosen as a stop because of its size and the strength of local support for African communities affected by AIDS.

The Hamilton and District Labour Council is organizing the local event. Local groups Grandmothers of Steel, Blooms for Africa and Mabibi Wa Tama will also attend. Hamilton is one of 10 communities they will visit between Windsor and Winnipeg.

The three African experts will give presentations on progress in the fight against AIDS in Africa.

The three presenters will be Wairimu Mungai from Kenya, Netty Musanhu from Zimbabwe and Nathan Nhlane from Zambia.

Wallace said the dialogue with attendees will be just as valuable as the presentations.

“Mainly, it’ll be the conversations with the three experts discussing the successes and challenges in the fight against AIDS.”

Lisbie Rae is cochair of Grandmothers of Steel and a member of Grandmothers to Grandmothers, an initiative of the Stephen Lewis Foundation that aims to provide support for African grandmothers struggling to help children orphaned by AIDS.

Rae fundraises with the group to provide finances and resources for projects in Africa. She remembers a trip to Africa where she met other grandmothers directly.

“A few years ago, I went to Swaziland with the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign and we marched with a group of 500 African grandmothers,” Rae explained. “They were blown away that people halfway across the world had an interest and a willingness to help.”

It’s hoped the tour will put AIDS back on the Canadian agenda. In Wallace’s view, the economic downturn in Canada has taken attention away from the pressing needs of African communities battling the disease.

For Rae, the tour brings stories that more people need to hear.

“I hope that Hamiltonians will deepen their understanding and compassion for the ingenuity and courage of those who are on the front lines of the battle against the pandemic of AIDS in Africa. They’re not helpless people. They’re cobbling together a life and keeping their communities together,” she said.