 Good afternoon. I'm Steve Morrison from CSIS and thank you all for joining us this afternoon. We're really thrilled to have the leadership from the AIDS 2012 conference with us here today. Chris Byrer from Johns Hopkins University and Diane Havelier from UCSF. They have taken this leadership role in preparing for AIDS 2012. The conference will be held here July 22 to 27 of this year, returning the United States after a 22-year hiatus. We're even more thrilled that today that we can welcome into CSIS four key personalities from America and from the faith-based community who've been at the forefront of putting in place health programs and have been willing to come and join us here today to talk in some depth about their achievements, about the assets that they bring, about the partnerships that they've forged over time, and how they see the future. This gives us also an opportunity to talk in a very positive way about the upcoming AIDS 2012 conference, which is going to put a spotlight on the role and the special contributions the faith community has made in this area. And so we're bringing these two streams together very deliberately here today. I also want to add this is not meant to be a one-off single event in this process. We hope that we'll be in the lead-up to the July conference convening again and have the opportunity to engage other faiths and other folks from the Christian community that we did not bring here today, including black church community in America. We had hoped that Bertrand Odan, the head of the International AIDS Secretariat would be with us today. He made a special journey from Geneva to be here yesterday, but he's become ill, unfortunately, and cannot be with us for this event and sends his regrets, and we'll do our best to try and get him here in the near future when he's feeling better. I want to also thank many of my colleagues who've made this event possible. Julia Nagel, this is being webcast live. We've solicited a number of questions online already that will be incorporated into the discussion. Matt Fisher, Suzanne Brundage, Carolyn Schroet, Robert Lee, thanks to all of you for your help here. What we're going to do is we're going to have some early welcoming remarks from Diane Haveler and from Chris Barr. Chris is just back from Burma, and we thought that was a very good occasion to hear some thoughts around the faith community in Burma and some of the changes, very promising changes he's observed. That'll take a few minutes, and then we'll move to what is meant to be a very lively, interactive, conversational roundtable with Kay Warren from Saddleback Church, Ken Hackett from Catholic Relief Services, Anita Smith, Children's AIDS Fund, and Ken Hill from World Vision. Diane will do the introductions of our guests. I want to single out Shepard Smith for his kind and very activist approach in helping us pull all of this together today. So please join me in welcoming Diane Haveler from UCSF, who's going to deliver, kick the event off and get things going. Thank you. So thanks very much, Steve. Thanks to all of you are here. Thanks to Suzanne for putting together this really exciting session this afternoon. This summer in July, July 22nd through 27th, over 25,000 delegates, including over 2,500 press, are going to be gathered here in Washington, D.C. for the International AIDS Conference. The International AIDS Conference is really like no other. It is the only health issue where every two years there is an annual gathering of the scientists, the policy makers, the community leaders, the persons living with the disease, economists, political scientists. They all come together to talk about how we can work together to define the AIDS response. The impact of this meeting is always just absolutely tremendous. This meeting has shaped the AIDS response. In 2000, the theme of the meeting was break the silence and it was the moment the globe came together and decided that we were going, that we could and we would offer treatment to every person that we could living with HIV. At the meeting, just to give you a little sense of what we do, is we take stock of the epidemic, we look at the trends, what's happening in terms of the numbers of new cases, where are they happening. We showcase the latest science. And we discuss and we debate the best ways for us to go forward in terms of the AIDS response. As Stephen mentioned, it's a historical meeting in that it's going to be occurring in the United States. The International AIDS Society requires that the host city or host country does not have a ban against allowing people with HIV to enter the country. And that ban that we had in the United States was fortunately lifted in the last year in order that we could host the conference here in the United States. So clearly, this is one of the first products of this meeting, which is the human rights victory. And we shouldn't underestimate that. This meeting is also going to be historic because we are at a time in the AIDS epidemic that we have never been before. Because of all the research investment of the United States and really countries around the world, we have a whole new set of tools and some new exciting data that lead us to believe that we can change the face of the AIDS epidemic over the next decade. And specifically over this last summer, there was some groundbreaking data that were released that showed this not only does HIV treatment help save lives and reduce suffering, but it also reduces HIV transmission between couples of 97%. And we're still pinching ourselves about the results of this study, but now the real work begins because we have to figure out how to apply this new exciting results. It's also historic because we used to be afraid to talk about the cure for HIV and now scientists have made new breakthroughs that now this is a very exciting dialogue that we're going to be having and we're going to have a pre-meeting before the International AIDS Conference starts. And also, we're now talking about things like HIV and aging, something that we never before we envision that we would be talking about. The excitement in the momentum that's been generated for this meeting I think was reflected in Hillary Clinton's really brilliant speech that she delivered in November of this year, where for those of you attended, she called for an AIDS free generation. This was followed shortly on World AIDS Day in December by another just absolutely inspiring speech by our own president, which talked about our country's commitment to ending the AIDS epidemic and our commitment to ramping up treatment to try to reach 6 million people through the PEPFAR program by 2013. One of the key questions that we are going to be addressing in the International AIDS Conference is how do we take this new knowledge and apply it in an era of economic restraints? Most of us in this room can't really change quickly what's happening with the economy. But I would argue most of us who are working in the AIDS movement can change how we approach the question of going forward. And I think we're going to need to think about new models. And these new models include many different things, such as increasing the efficiency of what we do, improving healthcare systems and integrating with other communicable and non-communicable diseases, and reaching out to new partners. The theme of the world, of the International AIDS Conference is turning the tide together. And what this session today is focused on is the together part of turning the tide. We know that we are not going to be able to use all the tools we have, all the knowledge that we have now to turn the tide without us having new models for collaboration. The faith-based community, and we're going to see some of the most prominent leaders in the United States, if not the world here with us today, have been involved in the AIDS response ever since it started. In fact, the faith-based community has been involved in response to diseases of vulnerable and affected populations long before the AIDS epidemic began. Their work is going to be absolutely key to the response as AIDS as we go forward. Really, when you think about it, a lot of the principles of why PEPFAR, and how PEPFAR was rooted, was rooted in the principles of a faith-based community. And this is something that has resulted in the saving of millions of lives. Early in the 1980s, when I was a physician in my formative years in San Francisco, right when the AIDS epidemic was breaking, we had our own version of leprosy. Young men were walking around in the halls of our hospital and every street in the Castro District with disfiguring purple lesions on their face, on their mouth, on their hands, and on their feet. And when I was a physician in San Francisco, I really learned a lot about the technical aspects of medicine, which has served me well. But what I really learned in San Francisco in that time was about compassion. And I really learned watching the patients, watching the communities about putting compassion into action. And that is, I think, really one of the hallmarks of faith-based organizations, what they have done for this epidemic. So Steve asked me to comment on what our vision was for the International AIDS Conference. And I think it is to take the new knowledge that we have, bring all the individuals at the table, including and especially the faith-based communities, to realize what we can do for the AIDS epidemic and truly make it the moment that we mark as the beginning of the end of the AIDS epidemic. So I want to thank you for your attention. I'm looking forward to the session this afternoon. And I'm now going to turn the microphone over to Professor Chris Baer from Johns Hopkins University, who will be the officially the President-Elect of the International AIDS Society announced in Washington this summer. So thank you, Chris. Well, thanks, Diane. Good afternoon, everyone. I must apologize. I got a cold on one of the five flights that it took to get here. And that's my voice of the law. What I thought I would do in talking with Steve and Diane is share with you some reflections on my recent trip to Burma, also known as Myanmar. And because I've been involved with that country for just about 20 years now, talk a little bit about the role that the faith-based communities have played there in regards to HIV, but also more broadly, because they've been so critical. They've been so essential. And I think it's one of those examples of where the spiritual traditions and the spiritual communities are really essential for people in the toughest kinds of situations. So one of the things, of course, that's just happened recently, for those of you who are following this, you know that about 10 days ago now was a large release of prisoners of conscience, political prisoners from Burma. And it was so heartening. And when that list came out, you know, many of us were looking very carefully to see who was there. And one of the people who was there was somebody that I have been campaigning for the release of since he was arrested. And so I'll just tell you a little story that will illustrate exactly what I'm saying. So in this country, of course, is very limited access to antiviral therapy. And we don't know the exact numbers because the surveillance is so poor, but somewhere less, certainly less than one in five Burmese who needs antiviral therapy gets it. So it's still a place where the majority of people die of untreated HIV disease. And that means, of course, that there is a substantial need for hospice care and for care of people who are really, really quite ill. And the Buddhist monasteries in the Buddhist parts of the country, in many cases, have stepped up to the plate and really, really worked on that. And a large one just outside of the old capital, Rangoon, was a place called Magan Monastery. And the abode of that monastery is a man named the venerable Uindaka. And he's a man in his 40s, a very progressive person and really set up a tremendously effective wraparound service of AIDS, basic AIDS care, support, stigma, reduction programs, and a hospice setting. But he also is, like many of the monks, a person involved in human rights and democracy. And so, as many of you will remember, 2007, there was this tremendous uprising of the clergy of all faiths, but certainly, most prominently, the Buddhist clergy in what was called the Saffron Revolution, September and October of 2007, which was brutally crushed by the then military government. Magan Monastery was raided, the patients were thrown out onto the street, and the people in the surrounding community were told that they must not help those people or take them in, or they too would face severe consequences. The monks were arrested and detained, and Uindaka was jailed and forcibly disrobed, which actually is sort of not allowed to be done, but anyway, that's what the military did. He maintained his practice for the next four years or so in very, very tough prison conditions. We were greatly concerned about him. There was congressional hearings this summer on the transition in Burma. I was a witness in those hearings, and that was actually the first appearance of Aksaksuchi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner in the U.S. Congress. She spoke via videotape, and we again raised the issue of this man, the other monks, and called for their immediate and unconditional release. So imagine my delight to find out that he's been freed. So that's a great thing, and it illustrates, I think, hopefully, the change that's happening in this country, and also really the central role that the faith-based community has played. I have to say that there is somewhat of a more troubling concern, which is that Burma is a multi-ethnic country and a multi-religious country, and large parts of the country, particularly in the north, but also in the west, are heavily predominantly Christian. And one of the larger ethnic groups that lives in the whole north of the country on the border with China is the Kachins. And the Kachins had a long-standing ceasefire with the military. That has broken down. The new civilian government called for an immediate cessation to violence, and unfortunately the army disregarded them. So that's a real concern. You have a civilian government, you would like them to be able to control the military. That's kind of not what's happening. The best accounting is that there are some 60,000 internally displaced Kachin civilians right now, so that is really getting to be a substantial humanitarian crisis. The military has allowed one UN convoy in. They distributed 300 blankets. So we have ways to go there. And right now, honestly, the only groups that are there and have access to those people are the churches, the churches of the Kachin people and the pastors. And there really is no one, as they say, between the dog and the wolf for those people, except the churches. And so they again are playing just a critical role. And it should be said, unfortunately, again the data are very spotty, but as far as we can tell, and my own group has done this and a number of others have looked at it, Kachin State has the highest HIV rate in the country, largely due to injection drug use. And so there are an enormous number of untreated people there. And there have been, of course, treatment interruptions with HIV treatment and TB treatment because of this internal displacement. That's just precisely the kind of direction we do not want to go in. So while we are uplifted in some ways, we also are just really cognizant that it's early days and for the ethnic people of Burma it's still a really challenging environment. Let me just close by saying we did, I was traveling with the president of Hopkins in a small delegation. We did have an afternoon meeting before we left the country with the Aung San Suu Kyi. She is in fantastic form, I must say. And she's engaged, absolutely committed to, as she has been for so long, to the health and well-being of her people, very interested in the HIV issues. And I reflected with her that in 2000, which required really a sort of underground insurgent effort, we worked together to get a video address for her at the Durban AIDS conference. And in that address she had basically highlighted two issues. And she so ran these by before doing it. And I really want to say two principle things. One is that everybody deserves compassion. We could all agree on that. And then she was very concerned that in Burma at the time, and remember this is 12 years ago, there was this perception that somehow there were innocent victims, like babies born to HIV infected women, and then there were not innocent victims, like people who were injection drug users. And she wanted to say, and from a Buddhist perspective, because she is a very devout Buddhist, it is completely irrelevant how anybody gets exposed. Everybody deserves compassion. Nobody is outside the circle of our compassion. And to me, that is the crux teaching of all the faith traditions. And it's something that because of the nature of HIV and the nature of so many of the people in the populations who are most heavily affected, that is just always a challenge for governments, for communities, and really the faith- based organizations and people have led the way in that in that tolerance. And that is just so critical. So I'm delighted to be a part of this. And I'm greatly looking forward to the deliberations and discussions this afternoon. And want to thank Steve Morrison and CSIS for doing such a spectacular job of helping us at the conference. Think about these issues. And thank you for your attention. Thank you, Chris and Diane. I'd like to invite our panelists to come forward and get seated along with Diane. And we'll begin the program. There's going to be a con for the next 45 minutes an hour. We'll have a structured conversation. And at a later point we will, Diane will open the floor for questions and comments. We have microphones here. When you come forward, please just identify yourself and be brief. And again, thank you so much for being with us. Well, thanks very much. Can everybody hear me? Is that better? Okay, great. So once again, our STEAM panelists, we have Kay Warren from the Settleback Church, Ken Hackett from Catholic Relief Services, Anita Hill from the Children AIDS Fund and Kent Hill from World Vision. So what I'm going to do is to just start out with asking each of the panelists, just to talk about the contributions of their organization to the AIDS response. And I'm also going to ask you one reason why your organization got involved in the AIDS response. So I think we'll start with Ken. Thank you very much. That last question I wasn't expecting, but it's actually very, very interesting for us. At Catholic Relief Services, we have operations around the world in 100 countries. And we have a long history of being involved in health, going back to the 60s and 70s when we were doing leprosy programs in Sierra Leone and parts of Africa. And I took over the organization in 93, and in 92 I had returned from the Philippines back to Kenya. This was the time of the Somali crisis. And what I noticed when I returned to Kenya was that friends of mine, people who worked for me, had died in the interim of 10 years when I was either in the Philippines or in the headquarters. And when I asked they had died of TB or pneumonia, this is strange. This is really strange. So I brought to my board, I think it was the first board meeting, the fact that we have to do something about AIDS. And the Catholic bishops, Steve, this was long before your time, said, touchy issue. And I was advised, do all you can, just don't get us in trouble. This was 92. And so we were doing a lot of community counseling and abstinence behavior change and kind of things in Uganda in the early days in Kenya, Ethiopia, all the parts of the world. But we were never doing anything clinical or medical. And there's a doctor at the University of Maryland, I guess he's a colleague of yours, Chris, Dr. Bob Redfield up in Maryland, who came over one day, just so that we could meet. This was in 93, 94. And he said, you, you Catholic Relief Services have this capacity of operations in 100 countries, you're connected to the Catholic health systems throughout the world. And you're not doing anything to treat AIDS patients. And he really gave me the talking tooth. And we deliberated for a long time. And we found ourselves more and more engaged. But we had no physicians on board. We had no expertise in those early days when the antiretrovirals really weren't doing much and they cost a lot. And there was no money. But some of us knew it was the right thing to do. And when the opportunity presented itself of that PEPFAR, well, first of all, we had to work to get the PEPFAR thing, as many people did here, get the legislation through. And then we decided to apply and did and won. And then we said, Oh my God, we won. We won in 11 countries. $365 million. And we don't have a physician on board. So we had to hustle a little bit. But that's the beginning of the serendipitous way that we fell into this thing. But I think it was out of the the just right in your face fact that there were so many people that we knew personally, who had passed away from the AIDS virus that pulled and pushed us into it all. What about you, Anita? Well, I'll do the second question first. How how we got involved? Children's AIDS Fund is a faith inspired organization and has partnered with many faith based organizations for 20, 25 years ago. Oh, sorry, 25 years ago. We really got involved because of my husband, Shepard, who's already been mentioned here today. We he was we had a consulting business at the time, working with faith based organizations and other nonprofits. And he and his father, who was still living at the time, were looking at reports of what was happening. The beginning of the symptomatic, you know, syndrome that that people were talking about. And and as we he and his father talked more and looked at it more, they thought his his dad was a orthopedic surgeon with a public health degree, felt that we needed to respond differently. And then we were at the time and there needed to be very specific steps that were taken and groups that were going to actually limit the spread of what was happening and find the answers. At the time, unfortunately, there were some faith based leaders who were coming out very vocally in opposition to people who in judgment of people who were affected by this, this new disease. And we knew that was wrong. You know, that was not who we were as people of faith. And so it really was a combination of events. We didn't know anybody. We didn't have friends or family that were impacted, but ended up through that series of events, closing down our consulting business and turning it into AIDS organization at that time. And we've been involved for the last 25 years. So and one of our first, you asked the question about contributions. The first grant, government grant that we got was part of the first 11 organizations that were funded by CDC under the America response to AIDS campaign. And our task was to educate, equip and engage faith community in the issue. And so for those first five years, I think we were in a different church in a different community every weekend, going around and trying to help educate because in those days, people knew very little and were very afraid. So it was important to be there, answer the questions. And what was wonderful was in our experience, people, once they understood it, they were ready to be involved. They opened their arms and many, many times we were invited in if there was a member of the congregation who was infected and before the congregation knew they had issues to handle and we helped work those things through and in every case, but one, the congregation embraced the the infected individual and family. So that was the early contribution to the faith involvement. And we've been privileged to be a part of the AIDS Relief Consortium for the last eight years under Catholic Relief Services that Ken was just talking about. So we under CAF management, we have about well over 50,000 patients on treatment and care. Well, I wish I could say that we were some of the first to respond, but actually we were some of the last to respond. We've come late to the fight for which I've spent a lot of time apologizing and regretting and wishing that we had not been some of those who were early, as you spoke, some of the earlier church response, which was not positive. And for me, it was this 10 years ago, this next month, that I had an epiphany, if you will, it was a spiritual experience reading a magazine article about AIDS in Africa. And at the time, I didn't care. I wish I could say that I did, but I didn't. I didn't know anybody who was positive. It didn't matter to me. It was something that was off my radar. I was busy raising my kids being a pastor's wife. I was very involved in my life. And I was not aware of what was happening in the world, even though the pandemic had been decimating lives for so many years at that point. But I picked up that magazine article that day and something in that moment. It was as if I had never seen anything about HIV before, never understood the scope of it, never understood how many people were infected, never understood how many children were left orphaned and vulnerable. It was as if I just opened it and it was brand new news that had happened that day. And it launched me into a very deep soul searching moments. I spent about a month running as fast as I could from what seemed to be something that I was supposed to be involved in and yet I felt completely inadequate, I had nothing to contribute. I had been a home act major in college for Pete's sake. What did I know about a medical disease or what could I do for orphans? It just seemed daunting and completely out of my reach. And after about a month of just this very deep soul searching and realizing that I had been ignorant, that I had been heart hearted, judgmental, everything I knew was wrong. Top of that, you know, I didn't know much and when I didn't know was wrong. Yeah, really sad. Just came to a point, that proverbial fork in the road where you make a conscious decision to choose one way or the other in the way that you think. And I made a conscious decision that I had been wrong, I had been heart hearted, I had been way behind in showing God's love and compassion. And so I just I said, yes, yes, this is I know nothing, I will begin to learn. And God put in my path Dr. Robert Redfield. Interesting that you had mentioned him. I think Bob is is he's an amazing man. Shepherd and Anita came into our lives. And those three individuals began to tutor us and teach us and train us. And I began to go to the International AIDS Conferences and I, I looked at our church and thought, you know what, we have done nothing. We have done nothing for anybody who's HIV positive globally or locally. And that has to change. And so we began the HIV AIDS Initiative at Saddleback Church, which has both a local component and a global component. So we care for the people in our community who are positive. They have a support group. Our local HIV pastor is here. I brought him today. I think we may be the only church in the world. I don't think I'm exaggerating. I really think this is true. I think we may be the only church in the world who has four full time staff members committed to HIV and orphans that is their only job. We have a local HIV pastor who takes care and supports the people in our church and our community who are positive, helps create an atmosphere in our church of acceptance, of safety, of embracing people who are positive. We have a global HIV pastor whose sole responsibility is to care for people globally, teach and train our church members to go on short term and longer term mission trips to help with a pilot pilot project in Rwanda. We have a full time local orphan care director and we have a full time global orphan care director. Our full time orphan care director is here because we are committed to caring for people who are HIV positive. We are committed to doing what we can to call the faith community, to stand up to not be like we were behind the eight ball, be in the caboose. We want to be the engine that drives the train that says God cares for people who are HIV positive and this crisis will not be solved without the full commitment and engagement of the faith community. Already as you'll hear, the faith community and other NGOs has been dramatic, but there's a call for local congregations to stand up and to say, we care for people who are HIV positive. We care for the orphaned and vulnerable children who are left behind. So that's how we got started. Okay. Sorry. Thanks for your honesty. That was just terrific. Well, Kent rural vision has just such a huge reach in health. Tell us about what you're doing and how you got started. Well, a common thing we've heard today is the role of leadership. I was just watching a video this afternoon that somebody had shown me, which was Rich Stearns, who became president of World Vision back in 1998. And very quickly he came to the conclusion that if you looked at the total reach of World Vision, the amount of money they were spending on HIV aid was very, very small. And he took it as a major campaign that the scale of the crisis, the need to show compassion and to use the assets of World Vision internationally and in terms of the U.S. to do something. He got on a campaign on that. Didn't have much trouble convincing the international World Vision community to work on this. And as the others have suggested here, there were some people who thought, is this really what we want to be focusing on? But once the message really got heard loud and clear that compassion, Christian compassion, human compassion requires it, then it became a big deal. And back in 2000, it really began to scale up fast for World Vision. There was a hope initiative that got started. I think in terms of the question of what have we done that's probably had the most impact, there was something in the hope initiative called Channels of Hope, which I looked at the statistics today. I was sort of flabbergasted. I hadn't realized exactly the scale of what was going on. But for example, in Africa, the determination was made to address questions of stigma, to attract in the network of believers to work in compassionate care and palliative care and testing and all the things you need to do, behavioral change, messages, the whole range of things, you're going to need to do real major work with the churches. So we set up these three-day workshops. And the statistics over just a few years are that literally tens of thousands of these workshops occurred with hundreds of thousands of people and not just Christians. World Vision ran them for Muslim communities as well. The Muslims were very open to the messages and what we were trying to do. And so I think that may be the most effective part of what World Vision has done. Now they've done all the stuff related to the orphans and behavior change messages and palliative care. And there are very special things that faith groups have to offer. And we'll probably talk about that a little later. But I think it's really since about 1998, particularly 2000, that this is scaled up as a huge initiative for World Vision. Great, thanks. And one of the things I just want to say after hearing our panelists share with us that it's really great to see a lot of young people in the audience. You never know when you're going to come across some situation in here, some story, or open up some magazine that's really going to move you. And I think you can see what it did to these four people here and really what's happened. So thank you all for really for sharing that. I'm going to ask questions now to Ken and Kent on the outside of the panel just about some examples of things your organization has done with U.S. through U.S. partnerships and non-U.S. partnerships. I know you were track one into the TEPFAR program. So tell us a little bit about some of the major accomplishments there, but also about some things you do with non-U.S. partners. Oh, well, the U.S. partners was an effort to put together like Anita's group and the University of Maryland and others to find a combined effort that could bring capacity to other partners in the country's way we work. So taking just the Catholic Church's network, let's say in the 11 countries we were in, it's enormous because some of those countries, 40 to 70% of health care is offered by faith-based organizations and a good chunk of that is Catholic. And we were able to activate that and to support it and to help it grow and help its outreach to many more people. Excuse me. I think at this juncture we have approximately 270,000 people on antiretroviral care. A lot of that is going to be passed over to governments under the new plan. We hope that those governments bring the faith-based networks along with them. That's not always the case. But I think what we have been successful in doing is building those capacities locally in those hospitals and health centers at the end of the road. The Seventh Day Adventist, the Methodist, the Catholic Daughters of Charity place way out there that have been out there for 50 and 70 years that have built credibility and legitimacy and trust among the people they're serving. And that has to be sustained for the long term and that's one of the challenges ahead. Well, with respect to World Vision, unlike a lot of international organizations in the United States, we're not dependent on government grants. We get between $200 and $300 million a year. So 75, 80% of our money comes from private sources. So most of the money we get to do the work we do comes from other sources. And more than half of the money for World Vision International isn't raised by the U.S. at all. Most of the $2.6 billion is raised outside the United States. Now, we've gotten global fund grants that World Vision is using in Somalia, for example. Believe it or not, right now in South and Central Somalia through third-party entities. So there is money from non-U.S. government supports, both public and private. But the key, the key partner has been the churches and the religious institutions. The Orthodox Church in Ethiopia, Catholics and Protestants in Africa, Muslims, as I mentioned before, they're the backbone of it because they have the credibility in the community. If you can get them to share the right message and they activate their networks, I mean, they were there before we got there. They're gonna be there once we leave. There, the key is to connect with those community-based organizations. So I think our most important partners are the community-based, faith-based organization partners on the ground. I'm gonna ask the two ladies on my side just about as an issue near and dear to your heart, which is women, children, orphans. So maybe talk a little bit about some of the programs you have with the U.S. government, outside of the U.S. government, working with those populations. Well, it is definitely near and dear to our hearts. And we have both. We have one amazing Catholic hospital partner in Burul, Malawi that we've been able to work with private funding called St. Gabriel's. It's in Nama Tete, outside of La Longway. And what was wonderful about that partnership was they really had an idea. They didn't have an HIV program. Had an idea of what they wanted to do. And we said, okay, we'll partner with you and give you the seed money to do it. And so what's so great about that is because so many times donors don't really know what should be done, but we say we'll give you money to do this and that's not what really has to be done first. In this case, they had a plan for a whole year to educate their catchment area which is about 600 villages in very, very rural area. Got the head men on board, developed village aids committees and have a whole network of people already in place educating them about the importance of coming to hospital, the importance of prenatal care, importance of learning your HIV status. So after that year of activity, they then introduced all of these issues, the testing, treatment, care, and it's the one place, I mean, of all of our partners, I think it's the one place, because they did it right, they have kept the HIV numbers down. I mean, there's not a lot of transmission. There is very open discussion, public disclosure in the communities. I mean, these village aid councils have become their trained community health workers and now they work not just on HIV, but multiple other things and it's a family-centered care is really what we've always advocated as what we need to do to create the right kind of environment and this is a model of that. So with private funding and Bob Redfield got us involved in that as well. This is, if I may, Kay, just one little comment. This particular hospital is I think a prime example of what faith-based and religious-based and motivated healthcare offers. It's not just the service of distributing a vaccine or an antiretroviral, it's a whole wraparound thing and I need to talk about the community base. The way the director of that hospital with Bob Redfield's help. Thank Bob. Thank Bob. Pushed and encouraged and helped that unit of good, strong, viable healthcare expand itself was really terrific and so the wraparound services are having a really powerful impact on adherence and all kinds of other indicators. So I mean we're hearing about the activation energy that the organizations create about the sense of community and the wraparound services and Kay. Well yeah, our experience is a little different because we don't receive any government money we never have. We never received a penny of a pet farm money or anything else. I'm not that we shouldn't or others shouldn't we just we have chosen not to. We wanted to, we felt like that we had a place of visibility and we wanted to be able to be completely free from self-serving motives. We didn't want anybody to think that we were advocating for anything because that we were a recipient of money. So we receive no pet farm money at all. And so our role I'd say with orphans is twofold and very, very dear to our hearts. It was orphans who first captured my attention with HIV and so they have remained very dear to my heart. But two things we're looking for new ways of doing church initiated sponsorship a little bit different than other sponsorship programs. We're looking to ways that churches can go directly from church to church in different places where the church on the ground actually recommends who the children are. We're looking for ways to keep children within families in countries where possible where traditional sponsorship dollars might be either for a child or for a community. We're looking for ways to strengthen maybe the extended family so that a family could keep a child if they had income generation or something else. But we're also advocating adoption for as one of the solutions to the orphan problem. There were only about 9,000 children adopted into the United States last year internationally out of the 16 million that have been orphaned by HIV. So if AIDS has killed and left 16 million children orphaned and only 9,000 let's say of those were adopted into the United States, there's a problem. And we're also advocating the adoption of HIV positive children. This should be a place where the church should shine. We should be the first to say we will take HIV positive children in the country where they are from but also if that doesn't happen, if there isn't a strong enough support system there why should a child be left in an orphanage? Children were not made to grow up in institutions. They were made to grow up in families. And there are families available. We just need to make sure that that is done in a really good way. One of the things about orphans that to me is very tragic even at the international AIDS conferences there's got nearly enough emphasis on orphan children or on the HIV positive children. If you look at the numbers of conferences and symposium and events that are about children around orphans, it's minute. And who are the most vulnerable? In HIV we talk about who are vulnerable populations. Who is more vulnerable than children? No one. No one is more vulnerable. They are the most vulnerable people on our planet. And this should be at the forefront. They should receive the top research dollars. They should receive the top money, the best treatment. For an adult we would not look at a child an American say well if you're sick let's cut a Tylenol and have and give it to you. We don't do that. Why do we in HIV care think that that's appropriate for children? So as our role at Saddleback Church we are heavily into advocacy for children, for HIV positive children, for sponsorship in a little bit different way and for making sure that people are free and understand that they can adopt internationally these kids who are languishing in orphanages around the world. Well thanks Kay for those comments. I think that as we're putting together the conference program children in orphans will be a focus. There's also another population that needs attention and as our programs for mother-to-child transmission become more successful we have children who as we say a little bit technical but are exposed but uninfected. And our scientific studies today show that these children don't do very well and we don't know if it's biological reasons we don't know if it's social reasons but these children are in essence also being left behind. So this is another group that we need all of your advocacy on because these kids are gonna be growing up and members of our society and they need our support. So, can't you run a huge organization? I'm sure you have a lot of challenges. Maybe you could share with the panel in the audience some of them with any age response what have been some of the major challenges for you and your organization? Well I think actually, I mean I followed this issue for several years because when I worked for USAID and I worked in the Global Health Bureau and actually got a chance to see CRS and Anita and Shepard and other faith-based groups do a good job with funding to do the work and was part of the very heated debates about the strategy for dealing with the prevention of HIV AIDS and I think I've noticed a change in the last few months that I'm a bit disturbed by. December the first on International AIDS Day when President Obama spoke and we had a lot of other speakers from all over the world here. I see sort of backtracking on paying attention to prevention as such. There's a big push to make this an AIDS-free generation. We're wonderfully happy about the empirical evidence that if you're on ARVs and I think you use the statistic or you did, 97% of people on ARV are not likely to transmit wonderful news indeed. Not only do you save lives but you stop transmission. But there is a temptation I think to try to have just a technical fix to the pandemic of HIV AIDS and the success that we've known of the last few years has been a large part because there have been behavior change and so you take a place like Uganda or Kenya or Zimbabwe you actually had behavior change. There was a delay of sexual debut. There was greater faithfulness within marriage and within couples. There was a lowering of concurrent multiple partners which everybody knows is the greatest feeder of the spread of this disease. These were huge factors. Whereas in Southern Africa, the prevalence rates remained and still are stubbornly high. They had far more condoms than the rest of Africa but they didn't change their behavior as much to go along with that. And so if we don't have a combination of prevention options and interventions available, we're not gonna make this an AIDS-free generation. And here's where I think the faith-based groups need to be very careful that they don't lose one of the great gifts they have to deal with this pandemic. And that is to deal with behavior, responsible behavior. It has to do with sexual debut and it has to do with faithfulness and it has to do with Christians in places like South Africa and other places where Christians are technically in the majority. But frankly, their behavior does not match what Christian behavior should be in terms of multiple partners. The church ought to be the first to stand up and say, wait a second, this is the contrary. Your conduct is contrary to what we as Christians believe it ought to be. We need to be consistent. If we did that, we would drive down the spread of the disease. So I hope we don't take our eye off the ball in continuing to contribute to this part relative to intervention strategies that I think will make a difference. Great, thanks. And I think we'll be talking about combination prevention a lot at the meeting and that will be definitely one of the featured themes. So Ken, how about you? You alluded to some of them early on when you were starting up. No, I think Kent brings up a very, very good point. And I'm trying to think, we've all seen those of us who have traveled throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, you've seen the billboard with the advertisement about prevention paid for by USAID. That has an impact. It doesn't have an impact at all. I mean, I don't believe social marketing through billboards is gonna change behavior. And I think Kent raises a very good point that the credibility, the legitimacy of the faith-based health actors can bring about a sense of trust that can bring about change. And when it's pervasive and when there's a collaboration between governmental and non-governmental, government and faith health providers as well as for-profit health providers, if people could get on the same page in a country, I think you could have a powerful, powerful impact on behavioral change and on eliminating this disease and other diseases as well. People are not on the same page. I was telling my colleague this afternoon at lunch about a story in Kenya that when the slush of AIDS money came into Kenya from Global Fund and from PEPFAR, the government of Kenya, Ministry of Health and its various arms went out and hired people. Well, where are you gonna hire the people from? The trained staff were working in the Catholic, the Methodist, the Agra Khan, the other hospitals. And so the faith-based hospitals and health systems were losing their top quality staff. And a group of our Christian leaders went and saw President Kabaki and said, this can't happen. I mean, you're devastating our health service. And Kabaki made some adjustments because there was a moment of collaboration there. That's not true everywhere. And I think that's something this conference should kind of highlight, where great opportunities for collaboration exist, where together government, non-government, faith-based, and government can make a real change. Thoughts on any of those streams of challenges or some examples of cooperation, what you just heard from Tim. Well, I think that one of the keys to sustainability that we're all talking about and thinking about as we come, we're coming to the end of the track. One funding is shifting and funding is scarcer and all of those issues that we all know too well. I think that the role of the faith-based community is absolutely key to solving that because we've already talked about they're already in the communities, they have credibility, they know the people many times that come, that they serve, there's more of a safe place, it helps reduce stigma, all those things are important, but we just heard a story last week. It's kind of, again, a model for sustainability, if you will. There's a group called the Willow Creek Church Association, Willow Creek Churches in Chicago. They have a network of 13,000 churches, seven evangelical churches, and they've been working in several sub-Saharan African countries, but the story last week was there was a USAID-funded project in this very remote northern part of Malawi that ended, and we've all been through that as well. The project ends, it's not re-competed, what's going to happen, what now? But the great part about this story is the churches that the Willow Creek Association has been working with and training in that area are actually going to be able to pick up what was being done, they won't lose momentum, the program will continue, and it will be done locally without US government funding. So I mean, to me, we can look at obstacles and there are many, but if we continue to look at the models that work and strive for that and working together, as Hannah's talking about, it has to be a collaborative effort where everyone does their part and makes that come together. Can I hear something? What Anita said, as I told you, we don't take any government funds and so one of the crying needs is for healthcare workers. I mean, everybody bemoans the fact that there are not community healthcare workers because there will never be enough doctors, nurses, there just will never be enough professionals. And so how can we have community healthcare workers to take up some of the slack? So in western Rwanda, in the Kabulier region of western Rwanda, two years ago, we began a pilot project where we went to 14 churches in the area and one mosque. They said, we asked, would you recommend two people from your church or your mosque to come and receive community healthcare training? And so within a short space of time, there were 27 healthcare workers that we had trained. No government money, no outside money. This is a local church doing this in western Rwanda in collaboration with the local churches. Well, now two and a half years later, there are 3,500 community healthcare workers trained in that area and by the fall of this year, there will be 7,000 community healthcare workers trained without a penny of government money or anybody else's money. It has been something that the churches have done, they have come back and forth. The local, the indigenous church has received training and each of those healthcare workers has a case out of seven families. And so in a year, they will make 49,000 home healthcare visits, they teach a spiritual lesson, they teach a hygiene lesson. And so we're keeping the metrics on it because we really believe that it will over time raise the level of healthcare in that entire area. It's scalable, it's reproducible. It is something that you can do without a lot of money. And then in an era where the economic downturn is getting worse, there's no good news economically. There just isn't and there won't be for a long time. And with government, our government and others cutting funds, there has to be some way to step in the gap and fill some of those gaps where there have been government funds in the past that have taken care of things but there has to be something that is more sustainable. It has been said by each of us, the church is there in every community. It's an existing distribution channel for both information, for care, for support, for treatment, for treatment adherence, for the adherence coaches that could raise the level of people staying on their medication. The church in a community. I mean, we talk a good talk of honoring the faith-based community but I haven't seen it really yet. And I'm so anxious to see if these are not just words but really something that will be put into practice to value what the faith community brings, the local credibility, the fact that we will be there long after a grant expires, long after a government change, even if there's conflict, if there's turmoil, if there's disaster, the church is going to remain in a community. So the credibility, the durability of it, the fact that it's an existing distribution channel. The faith community offers the highest motivation of all and it is love. The faith community brings to this fight something that is not going to get tired, it's not going to get worn out, it's not because it's great foreign policy to have countries like us because we help them out in their problems. This is going to the heart and the core of who we are as human beings and the faith community brings that love and that compassion that will not grow weary in doing good. And so to see the faith community given, not just a seat at the table or a cursory glance, but to understand that we bring distinctives that can really turn this epidemic around is heartening to me and exciting. I'm thrilled to see the interest in that and I really hope that it becomes more than lip service but that the faith community has a role that's vital. Could I give you some examples that are non-Christian to make the same point? The key is to find whatever the religious community is in a given area and then tap into that. And we heard an example earlier of Buddhists. Let me give you one that's Muslim in India. It's not about HIV AIDS, it's about polio. The state or the province is Uttar Pradesh. Having a difficult time getting the folks to get their inoculation rates up. It was 20%. They decided to go to the Muslim community because there was a lack of trust in the product. And they convinced the Muslim leaders to do this. They got behind the effort and they went from 20% to 85% polio coverage. Now that's just another example. If you take the community, it happens to be Muslim in this case, but it could be Buddhist, it could be any variety of Christian community but they have the trust. If they give the right messages, they're the best positioned to make the change. So this has tremendous public health potential to activate these communities and bring out the best. The other thing I'd like to say is I think it sends a very powerful message when diverse religious communities cooperate together around a common problem. Because it sends a message of religious freedom and religious tolerance to the broader community. Because we all know religion isn't always a positive factor. It wasn't always a positive factor in the early stages of combating HIV AIDS. And it's a big group. You've got people who embarrass you, who are part of your religious group. So the point is to get people of goodwill who really are faithful to their religious traditions, have them work together and you bring out the best in those traditions. Great, one other panel wants to pick up on the cooperation, interfaith cooperation and examples that they have. Well, just to Kent's point, this area of cooperation and collaboration among faith groups has been longstanding. I mean, there are these entities throughout the world, Christian Health Association of Ghana, of Malawi, of, and then those associations will collaborate with other faith groups, Muslim, Indian, Aga Khan, whatever. So that is a longstanding issue that I think is under-recognized by the international public health community. Whether it be for HIV AIDS or from malaria or for TB or what. And I think that can be maximized if it's, if the, those individuals in governments, in the global fund, the people who are putting the money behind things can help the Ministry of Health see that that's not a threat. That's a collaborative partner. If you can work with this grouping of Christian Muslim agencies. But that's not the message they're getting. Oftentimes they're getting billed the size of your ministry, make it more efficient and more effective, not build up the whole health service. I want to just draw out, Kay, something that you said that is a theme that we are going to be also wanting to highlight in the conference. And that is the training of community health workers not just for HIV, but for multiple diseases. And I think that there's a very unproductive debate about AIDS exceptionalism. And I think we really need to put that debate aside and to talk about the ways that, as we do, I guess the appropriate terminology is text sharing. No, not text shifting among our community health workers really to raise the level of the whole health of the community. And I think that that's a very exciting concept that we will be featuring in the AIDS epidemic. I think now we can open up the panel to some audience questions. The way that we'll do this, if you could kindly identify yourself, we'll take a couple of questions and maybe take two or three and then we'll serve them to the panelists. I'm very taken with how all of the panelists have highlighted, oh, by the way, I'm Stephen Kolecki. I'm with the US Conference of Catholic Bishop. I'm very taken by how the whole panel highlighted the distinctive contributions that the religious community can make and the strengths that we can build upon and the reach that we can have in local communities and so forth and the spiritual resources we can bring to the task. One other thing that is important for those communities that do collaborate with government is the ability to do an active partnership. And one of the things that was important in the original PEPFAR legislation and then in the reauthorization was that there would be an emphasis on abstinence of behavior change, which you alluded to earlier, but also that there would be conscience clauses so that faith communities could do what they do well and make that contribution, but not have to do those things with which they don't have any expertise or have a moral problem or objection. And I just wondering if the panel could comment on how the faith community can work with our own government as it moves toward reauthorization of PEPFAR in the future, even if the dollars are less, it's still the significant player and having active partnerships will be important. So preserving those conscience clauses and other dimensions of that will be important. Thank you. Great, thank you. Yes, in the back. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Rosemary Sekiro. I'm the president of Hope for Tomorrow, an organization that focus on young people and women I'm initially from Kenya. Hello. I want to thank you all so much for this wonderful presentation on faith-based. I think you've seen so many... We've had so many conferences all over the world since the epidemic broke in Africa. So many people have died, women, children who are victims. And I want to thank Faith-Based because Faith-Based has really supported Africa. When it comes, I don't know how many countries, but Africa has over 50 countries. And Faith-Based has really supported Africa, especially with vulnerable children and orphans of HIV-Aid. How do you look or what do you think is very, very important? Is it prevention, protection, or treatment to those that are victims? And are you collaborating with African faith organizations and faith and organizations like mine? How can we collaborate? Because HIV has been there. If we collaborate with you, Faith-Based, I think they would have been very, very big changes, especially people on the ground and you from here. So how can we collaborate with us and those back in Africa? As I say, Africa has 51 countries. Maybe you've been, I don't know, but I think Faith-Based is doing good work and has been doing good work. Thank you. One more question. Yeah, I'm Heather from the Guttmacher Institute. And I also had a question about the conscience provision. So I wanted to jump on that question and just talk. I would like you to talk. You've talked convincingly, I think about the love and compassion that's really at the center of your work. And I wanted to hear a little bit about the protections of beneficiaries of your programs. I'm thinking particularly of discordant couples who need information about the importance of condom use in their lives. And if there are objections to condom use, then just how to meet those special needs of those discordant couples. Thank you. I think what we'll do is we'll take these three questions and then I'll have you come back first to the microphone. Because I think we have quite a bit of material for the panel. Yeah, let me begin with the conscience clause. I think one of the big factors in why the international effort on HIV AIDS has been successful has been a big tent approach. And in a big tent approach, you have a lot of people under the tent who have something to contribute, but they don't contribute everything and they don't even necessarily like each other. I mean, let's be honest. When the USG would give money, USA would give money to faith-based groups, it would give money to very secular groups who didn't like the faith-based groups, who didn't like any talk about abstinence or be faithful, didn't want to talk about behavior change at all, who didn't like us distributing more condoms than anybody else in the world. And the other side of the spectrum didn't like us talking about abstinence and being faithful. And the conclusion we came to was you really needed all of these different approaches. You didn't need to require that everybody commit to or believe in all of them. What you did need was for them to do what they were capable of doing that would make a difference. And there has been a very definite shrinkage of the conscience clause understandings in the United States in the last few months. And whether it's the Catholics being told that if you don't do what we think is the right thing to do with respect to offering or requiring of your employees or providing for your employees contraceptives when that would violate a tenant of your faith to saying that you may not participate if you don't have the right views on a particular sexual issue. These are very dangerous moves that will have very severe religious freedom consequences and public health consequences. If we were to do something that did not continue to include the faith-based players in the fight against HIV AIDS because some don't agree with everything that the faith-based groups believe we lose tremendous amount of firepower. On the other hand, if you just went for faith-based partners and you didn't have secular partners and you didn't have people who worked with folks who, let's talk real frankly here. If you didn't realize that prostitutes who are willing to play a major role in making sure that condoms are used, if you, because you didn't like what prostitutes do, which many religious groups, all religious groups that I know of don't really favor, they don't think it's healthy for women, they don't think it's good for the community. Nevertheless, it's better to use a condom in a prostitute situation and not infect family members, innocent family members or children. I think you've got to have a big tent that allows people to play the role they are willing and able to play to do that. That's gonna keep involved the faith-based groups, it's gonna keep involved others who don't always agree with everything in the faith-based groups, but we've got to do what we can to protect the conscience of all who are involved to allow us to gain the full benefit of what they have to offer, and we need to fight hard for the conscience provisions to be there that will allow that full range of actors to play a role. Any of the other panelists? Eloquently said, Kent, and I don't have to answer Steve's question, which makes it even better. And I think it partially answers the question from the woman from their gut, Marlore. Partially. Yeah, and one of the things I wanted to say in response to your question related to condoms and discordant couples, et cetera, I think that often there's an assumption made about faith-based organizations and what they do. There's a broad range of services that are provided. In some instances, they don't distribute condoms. In others, we do. And so it's a matter of understanding, and if there's something that our partners can't provide, we do referrals. So the elements are there. And so I think that that's also important in terms of what Kent was saying. Big tent, we all work together. We do our, we contribute our strengths and work with others who do things well that we don't do or don't do well. So I think in that way, that's how we've addressed that issue. Great, thanks. Our second question that we had was just, I would generically reframe it as how your organizations are working side-by-side, hand-in-hand with African faith-based organizations. Brandy, remember the panel. Well, let me start. If you visit our office in Westlands, we'll talk to you in Westlands. We work with hundreds of organizations in Kenya, in every part of Kenya, and as does World Vision and many other organizations. So we're open to collaboration. We don't know everyone who's doing everything, but we're open to support, find out, collaborate with all types of African religious or faith organizations. Now, I think that probably speaks for just about everybody. Thank you very much. I want to thank CSIS for this forum and to some of my dear friends, and you all have been great. I'm really here to make an announcement. I am, I am Pernessa Seale, the CEO of The Balm in Gilead, and for 23 years, we've been mobilizing the faith community to address HIV and working in five African countries, bringing Christians and Muslims together, building their capacity to take on this work. We are also PEPFAR funded, but I'm standing here to take this opportunity because for many years, that comes along with the International AIDS Conference are so many pre-conferences. And one of those pre-conferences is the Interfaith Conference. And this year, July 19th to the 20th, the Global Interfaith Conference will be held at Howard University. Our theme is Taking Action for Health, Dignity, and Justice. As many of you know, the international sponsor is the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance out of Geneva. And the national co-sponsors is The Balm in Gilead, the Catholic Medical Mission Board, and the American Jewish World Service. You can visit the website as up. Our call for abstracts have not yet come out, but the website is ic-faith.net. We have a call for chaplains at this time, and I just want to invite you all to stay tuned because I know that most of you in this room are part of that Global Interfaith Conference, and we wanna see all of your participation this year in the United States at Howard University here in D.C. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna take the moment to just ask some of the panelists. I know Kaye shares some really exciting things that her group was planning on doing up to the conference. Maybe you could all share with us. Sure. We're looking, I was just talking with some of the folks from CSIS that we are looking to mobilize 100 churches. We started with 10 and decided that wasn't nearly enough. 100 churches in Washington, D.C. to not just be a presence during the conference, we would like to do two things. We would like to mobilize churches in the D.C. Baltimore, Northern Virginia area to maybe fly the Red Ribbon during this conference week. Lot of churches show that sign of support on World AIDS Day, but what an incredible moment for the faith community and synagogues, mosques, whoever would like to fly the Red Ribbon. Red, that sounds like Elmer Fudd, the Red Ribbon, during that week. We, in particular, we have one that has a cross in the middle of it because we believe that it gives two messages, one, that God cares for people who are positive and that we can't solve a crisis without the faith community, without the church. So that'd be one thing that we would like to mobilize churches, but we'd also like to not only have them make that statement during the week, but an ongoing outreach ministry. So if 100 churches would decide that they would begin an HIV ministry outreach in this area as a result of that conference and we're looking for 50 of those 100 to be in the African-American community, it's got to be a partnership between African-American churches and everyone. So we are looking to do that, we're looking to take people to the conference from our church, we're hoping to bring about 40 people from our church, mobilizing other evangelical pastors in the United States to come. It's a perfect opportunity here, it's in our capital and Washington being the AIDS capital of the United States, it would be tragic if not almost hypocritical to not address the epidemic here locally while we're bringing in people from all around the world. This is a moment, it's a moment. Well, thank you Kay, and stay tuned for that. Yeah. Hi, my name is Jennifer Chow with Research America. I know we've talked a lot about delivery and we know that the faith-based community we've talked is a very powerful force, both here and abroad. I was wondering if you guys could comment a little bit about that force here in the US and the role for advocacy specifically around research and development here in the US using your reputation, using your roots in the community and how we can gather more support from key leaders around that, perhaps even at the conference. Hi, my name is Father Kiro. I actually just started at my own non-for-profit organization called the Blessed Mother Teresa Center for Hope, providing support for the LGBT community for those who have been rejected by friends, family and others because of their HIV status. So, but my question is we hear a lot about what's the work happening in Africa, which I've had the opportunity to see firsthand, as well as in other places in the world, but when it comes to North Africa and the Middle East, we barely hear anything and there's a big crisis over there. So I wanted to know kind of what is happening and what's being done over there other than Lebanon because I know Lebanon is pretty advanced in regards to that, but when we're talking about Egypt, Iran, you know, Israel, it's South Palestine and so on, there's a big crisis in those countries and but we'd never hear what's going on, what kind of work is being done there, so it'd be nice to hear more about it. Great, thank you, great question, one more. Hi, my name is Ashley Weatherford. I'm here representing the Best Shot Foundation. I actually, I wanted to piggyback off of her question about galvanizing members of the faith-based community in order for advocacy purposes, but I also wanted to know sort of what you think it takes to encourage members of the faith community to support funding that is very essential to programs like PEPFAR or the Global Fund, thank you. Great, great question, so maybe we'll start with the Middle East question, I think our panel would like to tackle that one. Yeah, let me just, you were talking about the discrimination, even violence against LGBT folks in the Middle East and in Northern Africa? Yeah, I suppose on the latter point, I haven't got as much attention because relative to Africa, the prevalence rates weren't as alarming, but on the first issue about the violence and the discrimination, the hostility and really pretty bad situations relative to violence, you're absolutely right. Those situations, no compassionate Christian, of any religious faith, could in any way condone and ought to be a part of stopping any kind of violence against groups. The issue is not what you think about their sexual behavior, this is totally a material to when people are abused and violence against them, so, but you're right, that's a serious problem there and to the extent we can have some impact on saying, separate whatever your views are on sexuality from condoning or not attacking any activities that are hostile to this group or anybody else that is subject to that kind of persecution. I would just say you raise a very valid point. It is very much under the radar in North Africa and the Middle East, Lebanon, I would also have to say something about Lebanon and you cut me off there, but you're right, but there are so many other issues that have been heaped on the stage in North Africa and the Middle East that that one is just getting very little attention from most of our, the operating agencies. But the funding issue, I think it's important too because nobody's mentioned it yet, but I think really a key role that the faith-based communities played during the budget debates over the last six months, they played an absolutely clerical role in keeping the health numbers relatively steady. I have a vice president who just deals with advocacy and a team of 12 people and he conducted, I read his evaluation of his team over the weekend, hundreds of meetings with senators and congressmen, all making the case the faith-based community cares what the levels are, they don't want disproportionate cuts in the budget, they don't want it done on the backs of the poor around the world or in this country. What better groups in the faith-based community to say, look, these are difficult times financially, but this is not the place to be making the cuts. And I think with some impact, and we weren't the only group that did that. So I think the role of faith-based groups in helping the government to keep their numbers up for the budgets is very important, even as they raise money privately to do this good work, the government has an obligation to do something and this ought not to be where the cuts take place. But the reality in terms of increased money for research into this area or service, under this budget environment, it's basically hold rather than increase. And I think together we've done a lot of things on Capitol Hill, but it is a real hard push at this point in time to get big increases. And one other point I just wanted to pick up in regards to the Middle East, one of the Future of the International AIDS Conferences we have regional sessions. So we are going to have a specific regional session about the part of the world and we will have experts and panelists and members of the community really try to delve in to the problem that you really just brought up. So thank you very much, really excellent. Other questions, yeah. Thank you very much for this very important and very vital point about how to work together as different religious groups and towards our common enemies like HIV, tuberculosis and others. And also I'm proud of how the Catholic Relief Agency work in different African countries. But now I'm very interested to hear like what is the next step towards contacting other religious leaders in this country because as a Muslim now I'm hearing the word like HIV and homosexuality pops up in the Muslim sermons. So I think they're entering into it. So it's good to collaborate and fight again as an enemy and I would be interested to get all of you like business cards and go after, most after most to deliver this message. The other thing also I'm very much curious to hear that like whenever we talked about global we take US out of the equation, the equation. So what is like being like Washington DC the most prevalent rate even compared to Uganda? Like what is the activities here in this community? I haven't heard anything about what's going on in our neighborhood, what's having worked in areas. Thank you very much. Hi, I'm Christina Herman. I work with the missionary outlates of Mary Immaculate and it's a Catholic order. It's in 65 countries. We have AIDS clinics on the ground in Africa but what we focus on primarily is talking to companies. So we talk to all the major pharmaceutical companies. We do this in collaboration with other faith-based shareholders in the Interface Center on Corporate Responsibility, which is a 40-year-old organization in New York. So I just wanted to throw that into the mix as sort of an additional, a different take on how to deal with the AIDS problem. I think the global health work within ICCR started with faith-based shareholders going to pharmaceutical companies and saying basically asking for drug donations. This was back in the 90s. And then it's evolved to talking about, now we're talking about the business model and pricing. And specifically, and this is my question, relates to the pricing issue of second and third line drugs and particularly in middle-income countries where the companies see at least people with resources in middle-income countries as the next big market. So as you folks are really on the ground providing services, how do you see that as a problem? Or do you see it as a problem? And do you have any views on the Unitate Patent Pull? That's something we've been talking to companies a lot about as a way to try to pull the intellectual property of the HIV AIDS drugs and create new formulations, focus more on pediatric formulations, that sort of thing. Yeah, I'm David Briden with Results. Thanks for the interesting panel. Just a real quick question about tuberculosis and HIV AIDS. As we know, tuberculosis is the single biggest killer of people living with HIV AIDS. And so I'm interested to hear how your programs have been addressing TB, HIV, co-infection. For instance, are churches that you're working with working to break down stigma about TB, which is actually very high? And to help people in the congregation know the signs and symptoms and be willing to come forward for screening. And I guess with the conference itself, maybe you could tell us a little bit about how TB HIV will be, how you expect it will be addressed within the program of the conference. And I don't know if there's space to comment, but I'd be curious to know, as you look at, as you look at HIV AIDS, and obviously, my question is about TB. If you look at TB, it's killing almost as many people as HIV AIDS on a yearly basis. It's very close, actually, in terms of overall numbers. And I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about how the faith community might take up that as an issue, whether it's HIV related or not. Obviously, the faith community is embraced. Their cause is particularly malaria, but hasn't picked up as much on TB as an advocacy issue, per se, even though as we were hearing the research and agenda, research and development agenda is very important on TB and getting overall funding, obviously, is important. Thank you. Great, thanks, David. I think we'll start with that question. Just to ask any of the panelists that they wanna comment on their work in HIV and TB and their advocacy efforts. Just from our point of view, we have not been focusing specifically on TB, but the partners that we support, the mission hospitals at the end of the road, have long been dealing with the issue of TB as well as AIDS and as well as malaria. They're full service providers for all diseases in the catchment area that they are serving. So if, I mean, we're not focusing on a particular advocacy agenda on TB, although that should be considered. But in terms of dealing with TB as a disease, it is being addressed through all of these, Christian and other types of faith-based hospitals. That's our experience as well. All of our partners are addressing both and screening for both and malaria as well. So it's all part of the package that's being, the services that are being provided. And we should think about what more we could do to help the issues that you're talking about. And we'll do that, actually. And just to answer David's question in terms of the conference there, one of the plenary talks has been dedicated to HIV and TB, which is going to be delivered by Professor Tony Harris, who lived in Malawi for decades actually, and worked in both HIV and TB, as well as some symposium sessions, and as well as some skills-building sessions. And I really, just hearing the question, I really would invite the faith-based community, HIV and TB is an area that I work in. I think we can all get better at the way we deliver care. And I think the faith-based community and some of those skill-building sessions would be wonderful to have you at the table in those discussions, so really we can all brainstorm together about how to do it a little bit better. Because it's still a little bit siloed and I think we could probably make some progress. There was a question in the audience about what's happening here in the United States and in Washington, D.C. I know there's tremendous amounts of groups here in the city from the faith-based community who are working actively in HIV are going to be at the conference. Would any of the panelists like to comment on that? Well, I think you, Kay brought this up well before, and I was really pleased to hear that and heard that before. But it is true that the HIV rate is higher here than I think any place else in the country, so it's great that you're planning on doing that. I would like to say something about the drug question, if I could, about how to address the drug companies and the problem with patents, et cetera. Of course, the issue is a very complicated one in the sense that you don't want to do anything that interferes with the research to get done, which will make the breakthroughs. At the same time, there's plenty of room to appeal to drug companies on their pricing and what can be a win situation, which brings up this issue that I really want to say as well. There's a tendency sometimes to talk about faith-based organizations in terms of their moral fiber and their character, et cetera, et cetera. But I think it's terribly important not to draw some kind of sharp, artificial distinction between the faith-based communities and their moral commitment and the rest of the international humanitarian world. We all know that there are plenty of people who are not, quote-unquote, faith-based organizations who are motivated by the very highest standards of conscience and belief in morality, et cetera. And there's plenty of room for collaboration for people of goodwill, whether they're in organizations that call themselves faith-based or not faith-based. And there's actually a theological warrant for this with respect to Christianity in particular, which requires us to see in all human beings whether they happen to call themselves religious or not as repositories of the design spark of conscience if nothing else, even if that's all you call it. Any place you see works being done that are good, it's theologically sound to say God is in some way at work there. And it's really an important message for Christians and other religious believers never to forget that there are people of goodwill out there that are more than willing to cooperate and are motivated by extremely high values. And we need all the help we can get and we can go together to those drug companies sometimes to say, is there a way you can meet your needs and yet you can help us get a good price. I used to be on the Gavi board and this was the big issue, is there a way the global alliance for vaccines and inoculation? And we talked a lot about how do you go and make an appeal to maybe you buy in advance a lot of drugs so you, the international community agrees to buy a lot of drugs and they agree to put the price down a lot. Well there are ways to talk about this in a way that they won't, they'll have something to report to their stockholders and we can get what we need which is a product that we can reach the poor with. I'm looking at one of the online questions which I think you answered in some kind of a way which was how in such a divided country can we move this issue forward in a positive way? I think you partially responded to that and I would just turn that question around. If any country can move forward in a positive way we have total religious freedom here, we are just, for those of you who travel around the world and you just see how other countries don't have this, how fortunate we really are and to have the good ideas and the good will and the good faith of the panelists here at the table. I think you can be very optimistic in that regard, that's not our biggest animation. Could I address the question about collaboration with Islamic groups? I think the area of interfaith collaboration on health programs is rich. People might, the Boko Haram may be killing Christians in northern Nigeria but there are some efforts in Nigeria right now that show real and true interfaith collaboration around medical things and that can be repeated and seen in Uganda and in many other places. So there's opportunities there and I think there's a willingness. Now, there are issues but I think in the health arena you can get beyond those issues. Good afternoon, thank you for an excellent panel and greetings to my friends on the panel. The International AIDS Summit, as you said in your introductory remarks sets the standard for evidence in this area and I would like to ask the panel to comment on the challenges that many of us working with faith-based organizations face in representing and presenting to donors, to governments, to partners, to secular organizations. The evidence for the fine work that has been described in so many wonderful instances here by our panelists. It's really exciting to hear about the evolving vision for scale-up, for multi-faith collaboration for partnering with governments but in the end of the day and I think Kent of Gavi for example, $4.3 billion, who's the best distribution system in the world? Where's the evidence? So I put to the panel the question of how the summit might be used most productively and constructively to invite from our community the very best of the development of thinking when it comes to presenting, collecting and presenting the evidence. Thanks. Hello, thank you to the panelists and for all the work you do. I have a comment more so and an invitation more so than a question. My name is Amana Gowufamada and I'm with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation we're one of the largest providers of care in the United States and also have programs in 26 countries. And on the first day of the International AIDS Conference we're hosting a march and rally here in Washington, DC to call attention to the need for world leaders and governments to continue to fund HIV treatment. We're encouraged not only by the evidence refined in our programs but also by the science that shows with an increase in treatment and getting more people on treatment we can not only prolong the lives of people living with HIV but we can also reduce the transmission of this disease. It's encouraging. It gives us hope that this can actually be eradicated in our lifetimes and it's an issue that unites all of us Christians, Muslims, Black, White. It's something that we all know that everyone deserves and so we invite you to join us. It's going to be July 22nd here in Washington, DC and you can go to our website keepthepromise2012.org to sign up your support and I hope to see you all there in July. Thank you. My name is Lynn Award from the World Faith Development Dialogue at Georgetown University and Mrs. Warren you referred in passing to the fact that faith-based organizations don't necessarily get the respect or the place at the table despite the international community saying how much they're valued and we hear that a lot that faith-based organizations are to some extent underfunded overlooked off the radar. I'd like to ask what would it look like if faith-based organizations had a better place at the table? Is this a matter of coordination among faith-based organizations and is there a problem with faith-based organizations tending perhaps to be somewhat more fragmented or very numerous? For example, the perspective of Saddleback Church which doesn't take any government funding gives you perhaps a different perspective than Catholic Relief Services which has been very successful and active saying working with U.S. government funding. Thank you. That's a great question. I'm going to ask all the panelists to answer that one. Who wants to start? Well, yeah, she addressed it to me. So would you just make sure that people... Is your leaving just... Everybody's making an announcement so I'm going to make an announcement, okay? So we printed out just a flyer that's two-sided that just kind of some of the basic tenets of what we believe every church can do about HIV, the advantages and benefits of the faith community in global health and this little diagram right here on this little colored section right here is an example of a place in Rwanda that I mentioned to you where there are three hospitals, 18 clinics but 725 churches just to make the visual of where would you like to get your health care? And one of these three hospitals spread out, one to two days walk, a clinic, maybe one day walk or a church that is in every little hamlet in that area. So grab one of those on your way out. The question that you had asked about the faith community, some of that I'm gonna actually defer to these folks who receive government help all the time but at the very heart of it I would say that there is a prejudice against the faith community that I have experienced in funding on the ground. There may even be a policy at the government level of acceptance of the faith community and their contribution but then you get a country level or you get, and it's not always the same story. And so I would just say there is an attitude toward the faith community that they aren't valued as highly probably as they should be and then some of the messages don't get transmitted down the pipeline to the people on the ground that the faith community should be honored and respected and I think when it comes to funding, I think faith community is a disadvantage many times in not given, some of the doors are closed to the faith community or the restrictions are in place and really these others can speak to that more thoroughly than I can since we don't take it but this is what I know from speaking to many folks like these good folks here. Let me see if I can do a perspective on the attitudes. So you're working with CDC, you're posted in Uganda or you're with AID, you're posted in Uganda. Who do you deal with? You deal with the Ministry of Health and you deal with them in the morning and in the evening and you get to know them very well. You're not dealing with the sisters of divine mercy who are up north of Gulu. The ones who have the rubber sold sandals, they don't come in with the suits and I think that's part of it. It's a little bit of ignorance on the part of the public health professionals who were trained in the best universities who get assigned to the capital city are told to deal with the Ministry of Health not to deal with the obelisks or the Cambonis. So that's something that has to be factored in and I think it's coming but it has to be built around evidence. So somebody mentioned in one of the questions, what are you going to bring in terms of evidence that the faith-based community can actually produce at a scale as effective a service as anybody else? And I think that's some of the abstracts that should be brought forward for this conference. I mean, my people gave me notes about an 88% viral load suppression level. I don't know whether that's good or bad but it's a number. It's a number, it's a number. That's really good. But we don't want to say too much about that because we can't get it published in the journal of this or that but that's the numbers we have and I think if we can bring that kind of evidence-based approaches to the table, you can't, if you're the CDC, the Global Fund or the USAID health person, you can't ignore it. Certainly, let's say we welcome that the abstracts are due in two weeks so please submit your abstracts. I just wanted to say I do think that the transition of the PEPFAR funding from US to the country level is actually helping this because you have local partners who are stepping up and in many cases faith-based entities that are taking on more and more responsibility so they will be at the table more than the international partners who have been there. So I think that that's a step in the right direction in terms of being at the table and how we make that happen. And in terms of the evidence question, I just wanted to say part of what we've been advocating for a long time is mapping, mapping, mapping all of the services that are out there because it looked one way in the PEPFAR countries eight years ago, it's a very different story today and there's not been that kind of effort made that must be made for us to understand the evidence or get the evidence to show all of what is happening in the faith community and in other communities. So I think there are some small projects but not to the scale that we would need to get the evidence that is necessary. Okay, I'm, before I turn it back over to Steve, Kay, in the spirit of one of your comments, I know you said some of your team members were here. Yes. Yeah, I just wanted to all the audience members who are working in the AIDS movement as part of the faith-based community to stand up so we could give them a round of applause. So I'd like to thank our panelists and I think Steve is going to close for us. On behalf of everyone here, please join me in thanking our panelists this afternoon. You've been all very, very generous. Kay, thank you for coming such a long distance. Ken, Ken Tanita, thank you so much for your time and Diane, all of your leadership along with Chris in pulling together the plans for AIDS 2012, which I think is going to be a very successful gathering with a lot of key input from the faith community. So thank you all.