The Presbyterian Church in Canada sent eight international partner delegates, three national committee members and three staff to the ecumenical AIDS pre-conference. PWS&D committee members Dianne Ollerenshaw and Kate Ballagh-Steeper and international affairs committee member Ian McDonald joined staff Guy Smagghe, Karen Plater and Bella Lam as part of the 500 delegates from faith-based organizations around the world.
Plater, resource and communications coordinator for PWS&D, also chaired the Christian Host Committee that helped organize the mostly Christian conference discussing the AIDS pandemic. She opened the conference on behalf of the committee and all Canadian churches.
Reflecting on the success of the conference, Plater said it was a great opportunity to support partners who work with those infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. “It helps raise awareness in Canada and internationally of issues facing many people. And it helps answer the question, how are churches going to be involved?”
Esther Lupafya, HIV co-ordinator at the Ekwendeni Mission Hospital in Malawi, was one of the partners sponsored by PWS&D to attend both the Ecumenical Pre-Conference and the XVI International AIDS Conference. “I am very glad I came,” she told the Record. “Here we can share the hardship faced in many countries and at the same time we know of the hard work being done in research, which is very expensive, in the Western world.”
