Founder of the Bracelet of Hope campaign, Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik will visit Western on Tuesday to discuss the journey that led her to become an HIV physician and international activist.
The Delivering Hope event will be held at 11:30 a.m. in Medical Science Building Room M146. December 1 is World AIDS day.
Zajdlik is a family doctor and an HIV physician in Guelph. In 2005, she founded and now directs the Masai Centre for Local, Regional and Global Health, in response to the growing numbers of HIV/AIDS patients in the Guelph area.
The birth of an HIV negative boy named Masai to two HIV positive parents from Ethiopia in 2003 turned Zajdlik into an international AIDS activist.
In 2005, she launched the Bracelet of Hope campaign with a goal of raising $1 million in Guelph for the OHAfrica Tšepong Clinic in Lesotho. With the help of over 100 volunteers, that goal was reached in October 2008. Her dream is to take the campaign national, with the ultimate goal of freeing Lesotho in southern Africa from the death grip of HIV/AIDS.
Zajdlik graduated from the University of Guelph and McMaster University Medical School. She’s a regional HIV specialist and is a member of the Board of Directors of OHAfrica, the Canadian-based international AIDS service organization that provides leadership support to the Tšepong HIV/AIDS Clinic in Lesotho.
Inspired by Stephen Lewis and supported by her family and many others, she is determined to do what it takes to assist in the global response that is necessary to fight AIDS.