Working to Serve AIDS Orphans (7/04)

The first open forum I held on AIDS orphans was in July 2004 in New York City. The Rev. Bill Tully, rector of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, my minister, welcomed me to the St. Bart’s Rector’s Forum to discuss our plan to assist in the AIDS orphan epidemic. I spoke on AIDS orphans to OI Worldwide leadership at our first World Congress in Bali that same month, and also discussed AIDS orphans at an international NGO leadership conference in May 2005 at the United Nations Association of Minneapolis. Here I was given the United Nations Association Community Service Award in recognition of my attempts to position OI to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa as a natural disaster, the same way we had dealt with the Tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and Hurricane Jeanne in Haiti.