Stephen Lewis' Race Against Time

I had the priviledge of listening to one of the world’s greatest speakers (in my opinion), Stephen Lewis, the United Nations General Secretary’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa at a Montreal conference a few weeks ago.

Stephen Lewis calls HIV/AIDs in Africa “the ultimate ethical issue”.” (April issue of Time Magazine Canada article by Rebecca Myers, How the World is Failing Africa)

“He said the international community has lost “its moral anchor” and cited the industrialized world’s systemic failure to provide adequate aid to countries where the infected population of dead and dying could reach 100 million before the pandemic’s end.

Lewis specifically lamented the plight of women and called for the creation of an international UN agency to deal specifically with women’s issues. “Women are at the heart of the pandemic,” he said, with women and girls making up 76% of those infected between the ages of 15 and 19.”

I am just beginning Stephen Lewis’ book, Race Against Time, (published by Anasi Press), which starts off with his comment “I have spent the last four years watching people die.” Race Against Time is the written version of the 2005 Massey Lectures. You can listen to the first in the serious at CBC Radio where you can also order the broadcast series.
I urge you to listen to - it is unlike anything you’ve ever heard.

You can purchase Race Against Time at:
Amazon.com, Chapters/Indigo, Amazon.ca

You can get more information about the important and urgent work that Stephen Lewis is doing by visiting the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

Other links:
The Killing Train blog
Breaking the Back of the Pandemic
African Renewal
Blogcritic’s review of Race Against Time ”It is a book that everyone should read, that everyone should be frustrated and angered by.”

Comments

[al]

Massey Lectures are quite possibly the most inspiring, moving, series of lectures of the last five years. Everyone should give it a listen, it is truly enlightening to the average westerner, and hopefully very inspirational as well.