Some of the many friends from throughout Africa that I made in Ethiopia

At the end of November and early December I had the privilege to travel to two great HIV & AIDS conferences. The first was the Social Aspects of HIV & AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA) Conference in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. There, I presented the results of an evaluation of our On the Ball programme in Northern eThekwini, which generated a lot of interest. The highlight of this conference, for me, was viewing a pre-screening of a new film called Inside Story which follows the life of a young soccer player as he tries to cope with the pressures of his career and life, including HIV.

After returning from Port Elizabeth, I headed straight off to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the International Conference on AIDS and STI's in Africa (ICASA). This was a much larger conference with nearly 10,000 delegates from over 100 countries attending. I presented a 90 minute skills building workshop entitled, Quantitative Methods for Evaluating Behavioural HIV Prevention Interventions, which was attended by about 100 people and was very well received. I have identified that there is a skills gap in statistics within the field of HIV & AIDS research in Africa, and I hope that this workshop contributed to diminishing this gap. The notes from this presentation can be downloaded from our Downloads page.

I benefited greatly from attending this conference, partly because some of the leaders in the struggle against HIV & AIDS were present and I was able to hear a 'big picture' perspective on the epidemic. These leaders included former US President George W. Bush, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and numerous other dignitaries. Another reason I benefited from this conference was the chance to meet and network with people from many African countries about their projects and programmes. I made friends from many countries including Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Côte D'voire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. I was also able to get to know Dr. Bob O'Neill better. Bob is the Chairman of the Canada Africa Prevention Trials Network (CAPTN) of which we are a member.

It was also my first time to visit East Africa so it was great to experience another African culture. The conference was very busy from dawn to dusk so I didn't have much chance for tourism, but was able to visit a local restaurant, a traditional market, as well as an Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

I want to extend my thanks to CAPTN as well as the sponsors of both conferences for covering my expenses and thus allowing me to attend these two enriching events. I have come back to Durban with a lot of new ideas, energy and contacts to follow up with, and am confident that these will ultimately translate into better programmes for the beneficiaries of WhizzKids United!