SACKVILLE, NB — Mount Allison University will welcome Stephen Lewis, co-founder and co-director of AIDS-Free World and the board chair of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, to campus as part of this year’s President’s Speakers Series. Lewis will speak on campus on Tuesday, March 5, 2019 at 7 pm in Convocation Hall (37 York Street, Sackville, NB). The event is free and open to the public.

“Stephen Lewis’s life-long work around HIV/AIDS, internationally and across Canada, is iconic,” says Mount Allison University President and Vice-Chancellor Dr. Jean-Paul Boudreau. “We are honoured to welcome him back to the Mount Allison campus and look forward to what promises to be an engaging talk and the forthcoming community discussions and initiatives inspired by it.”

Stephen Lewis’ work with the United Nations spanned more than two decades. He was the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from 2001-06. From 1995 to 1999, Lewis was Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF at the organization’s global headquarters in New York. From 1984 through 1988, he was Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Lewis is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and Emeritus Board Member of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. He served as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on HIV & the Law and on the Lancet Commission on Public Health and International Drug Policy. From 1970-1978, he was leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, during which time he became leader of the Official Opposition.

In 2003, Stephen Lewis was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest honour for lifetime achievement. In 2007, King Letsie III, monarch of the Kingdom of Lesotho (a small mountainous country in Southern Africa) invested Lewis as Knight Commander of the Most Dignified Order of Moshoeshoe. The order is named for the founder of Lesotho; the knighthood is the country’s highest honour.

Lewis is the author of the best-selling book, Race Against Time. He holds 42 honorary doctorates from Canadian and American universities, including one from Mount Allison (1988).

Lewis’s Mount Allison talk is co-sponsored by the Wilford Jonah Lecture Fund.

Photo credit: Alexis MacDonald