Students on the Mayor Students Advisory Council have taken on the challenge of a kickoff awareness event for the Waterloo Region. This will be a night of entertainment focusing local talent and featuring speakers, Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik, Mayor Halloran and a representative of Dignitas Youth. It will be held on March 25th at 7:00pm at Waterloo Collegiate. Admission to the event is five dollars which includes a bracelet!!

ROB O’FLANAGAN
ROFLANAGAN@GUELPHMERCURY.COM
 

HLOTSE, LESOTHO — A once-in-a-lifetime scene unfolded on the weekend at the Hlotse High School, as young community activists from Guelph and Toronto met their Basotho counterparts for an exchange of contemporary dance moves.

Members of the Guelph-based development group Student Reach spent several days in Lesotho this past week, meeting with a local youth group and visiting the HIV/AIDS clinic Student Reach is committed to supporting. The group has set a goal to raise $25 million for the Bracelet of Hope Campaign.  

The nucleus of the not-for-profit community development organization, which originated in Guelph and expanded to a number of other post-secondary institutions, is formed by Brittany Martyn, Abid Virani, Ashley Bondad, Meaghan Morriss, Nicole Malatesta and Mathew Baptista. All are 19, all have Guelph roots or connections, and all have been travelling in Africa over the past several weeks, tending to community development projects they initiated and funded in Kenya and Tanzania and which they hope to launch here in Lesotho over the next two years.

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ROB O’FLANAGAN
RECORD NEWS SERVICES
Publish May 5, 2009
GUELPH

Abid Virani has lofty goals.

The University of Guelph student, the [co-founder] of Student Reach International, wants to raise about $25 million over the next few years to help stop the transmission of HIV-AIDS in the tiny African nation of Lesotho. He is certain it can be done, and his mentor, Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik, believes he will achieve it.

Student Reach has launched a new fundraising program aimed at reaching the student population across Canada. In conjunction with the Masai for Africa campaign’s Bracelet of Hope initiative, Student Reach has introduced the Box of Hope, a kit students of all ages can use to start their own Bracelet of Hope campaigns at the elementary, secondary and post-secondary levels.

“We’ve got five post-secondary schools so far, and hopefully another few will start in September, and we have a number of high schools and elementary schools all over,” said Virani, [19], who noted that several universities, including Wilfrid Laurier and UW are on board.

“People of all ages, we are asking them to join us in giving hope to a country that needs it,” he added.

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In the past three years I have had the privilege of leading this remarkable community in an endeavour that has just succeeded at raising a million dollars, funds that will keep 17,000 people alive in 2009 at the Tsepong HIV/AIDS clinic in Lesotho, Africa. I expected to take a moment this Christmas and enjoy the victory, the accomplishment, maybe relax a little and appreciate how tremendous a feat this was, but the wisdom and knowledge that I and my team have gained, have taken away some of our naivety, some of our joy. We have learned that the world is a very difficult and troubled place, we have witnessed unimaginable suffering and we have been seasoned by the tenacious almost herculean persistence and determination that is required of us as we continue to struggle against one of the world’s largest and most daunting crises: the AIDS Pandemic. We have been humbled.

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Guelph Mercury – Charlotte Prong Parkhill

From $1 million to $150 million, no dream is too big for Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik, founder of the Masai for Africa campaign and Bracelet of Hope Campaign.

“A bracelet on the wrist of every Canadian. It’s so simple, but will have a dramatic effect on the world,” she said.

“Thank you for joining me in my craziness.”

About 300 people bundled up in red sweaters and coats and braved a chill at Alumni Stadium Saturday to see Zajdlik hand over a cheque for $1 million to OHAfrica for the Masai HIV/AIDS clinic in Lesotho.

The celebration capped off a three-year fundraising campaign in Guelph and launched a nationwide initiative.

The baton has been passed to Oxford County, which has pledged to raise $1 million, and Waterloo Region, with a $2.5 million commitment.

Abid Virani is just 18 years old, but as the co-founder and executive director of an organization called Student Reach International, he’ll play a huge part in getting 33 million bracelets on wrists across the country.

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The Guelph Mercury – Lisa Verano

Heartbreaking images that live in the mind of leading AIDS activist Stephen Lewis easily bring him to tears.

His voice wavers as he recalls hearing mothers shriek as white sheets were placed over their infants in the pediatric ward of a hospital in Zambia.

Every 10 minutes an infant would die of AIDS and another mother would cry inconsolably, he said.

“How is this happening in the 21st century?” he asked hundreds of high school students in Guelph yesterday.

“Am I emotionally unstable? Yes, and I don’t mind admitting it, but I won’t give up.”

Lewis, the United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS from 2001 to 2006, said he believes that one day the pendulum will swing and real progress will be made in the fight against AIDS.

It feels negligent to give up when people affected by the AIDS pandemic in Africa are fighting hard to survive, he said.

Lewis, 70, saluted the students at Bishop Macdonell Catholic High School for learning about the AIDS crisis and taking action by raising thousands of dollars.

“You’re making a tremendous contribution. Never undervalue it. Recognize that it’s a notable effort to show basic human generosity and compassion for other people. We are our brother’s and sister’s keepers,” Lewis said.

The school’s social justice group, Celtics Without Borders, gave Lewis a Courage Award for being a role model for changing the world for the better.

Earlier in the day, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Guelph, adding to his list of dozens of symbolic degrees.

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The Ontarion – By Greg Beneteau

An event hosted by the University of Guelph in support of AIDS relief brought messages of hope and recovery from half a world away.

The public forum ‘Sharing Hope: Stories from T’epong,’ organized by the University of Guelph Students for Masai and the Multi-Faith Resource Team, featured testimonials from health care workers and administrators, all of whom had visited or worked at an HIV clinic supported by the Guelph-based Masai for Africa Campaign.

“This has been a remarkable coming together by the community… Today I’m proud, and we should all be proud,” said Dr. Anne Marie Zadjlik, a Guelph physician and founder of Masai for Africa.

Since Dec. 2005, Dr. Zadjlik has been working to raise $1 million from the Guelph community to fund the T’sepong Clinic, an HIV treatment and support centre located in the southern African country of Lesotho.

So far an estimated $600,000 has been collected from across the city. Of this amount, close to $50,000 has been raised by a coalition of University groups.

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