The executive director of CAP AIDS gave a presentation at a World AIDS Day event organized by CAP AIDS volunteers. He thanked the volunteers for organizing the event and discussed CAP AIDS' work in supporting local organizations in Africa that help people resist, survive, and overcome HIV/AIDS. Over the past 5 years, CAP AIDS has raised over $1 million and supports organizations in 5 African countries. The proceeds from the event will fund CAP AIDS' project to provide resources for African volunteers, mostly women, to help people with AIDS and orphans.

1. CAP AIDS World AIDS Day Event
December 1, 2008
Presentation by ObertMadondo
Executive Director, CAP AIDS
Good evening,
And thank you for this special opportunity to stand before you and talk about the
HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa.
Tonight I’m going to talk about leadership.
But let me begin by identifying a small group of energetic CAP AIDS volunteers who
organized this event:
AartiKumaria
Elyse Martin
RainosMutamba
Kate Jongbloed
JulienGagnier
SharleneBourjot
Kelsey van Moorsel
Carley Fort
You exercised leadership in the fight against the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. You made
it possible for each one of use to be here tonight.
Thank you!
The theme of this year's global campaign against HIV/AIDS is leadership.
By organizing this event, our volunteers followed in the footsteps of a small group of
Canadians and Africans who came together in 2003 to form the Canada Africa
Partnership on (CAP AIDS).
This small group created a volunteer-driven, registered Canadian charity that supports
grassroots, community-based NGOs in Africa which are helping Africans resist, survive
and overcome HIV and AIDS
Over the last five years, CAP AIDS has supported more than 16 such organizations in 5
African countries. In Canada, CAP AIDS has evolved into a platform that allows ordinary
Canadians to exercise leadership on the HIV/AIDS struggle in Africa.
And now individuals like yourselves donate their time, energy, expertise and resources
to support CAP AIDS' work. And, occasionally, some of you put together small, third-

2. party fundraisers to benefit the charity.
You exercise leadership on the ongoing struggle against the HIV/AIDS pandemic in
Africa.
This leadership allowed CAP AIDS to raise more than $1m in the last five years.
If you walked through that door alone or with a friend, you promoted something special
in the global fight against HIV/AIDs – partnership. You invited your friends or co-workers
to partner with Africans in their struggle to resist, survive and overcome HIV/AIDS.
If there is anyone out there more proud to be African than I'm today, please, let me
know.
And yet, there times when I'm ashamed to be African. These times include when I pick
up the phone to ask a fellow African based here in Toronto to come and perform at a
CAP AIDS fundraiser, and they ask me: “How much will I get paid?” These, I believe,
are moment s when Africans fail to provide leadership on the HIV/AIDS fight.
But I’m not just talking about ordinary Africans here. Every day, African leaders fail to
lead the continent’s good fight. Former President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki’s denial,
for example. According to a recent study by Harvard University, the denial caused more
than 300 000 deaths.
And of course, I have my own regrets. My father died of AIDS in 1996, after a long
illness. My elder brother, his wife and child followed a few years later. I lost them at a
time when I didn't have the resources to even support myself. Still, I live with this
gnawing sense that I could have done something.
Many in Africa die in isolation.
But tonight, we’re trying to reverse the tide. Proceeds from tonight’s event will support
CAP AIDS’ “Sponsor a Local Hero” project. The project provides African volunteers,
mostly women, with the resources they need to reach out to more Africans bedridden
with AIDS, and to AIDS orphans.
The project support one of the most enduring qualities these brave women bring to the
frontlines: hope.
A friend working on HIV/AIDS in Malawi taught me a lifelong lesson about hope. In the
fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa, he said, hope is a terrible thing to lose. He made me a
believer
Yes we can!
But I believe one day we will no longer just say Yes We Can! But Yes We Have...

3. Yes We Have resisted HIV/AIDS
Yes We Have survived HIV/AIDS
Yes We Have overcome HIV/AIDS
I believe the day we will come when Africans will say: Yes We Are...
Free at last! Free at last!
Yes We Are... Finally free
Of HIV and AIDS
Thank you!