HIV/AIDS conference starts today

“HIV/AIDS, The Power of Education” is the theme of a two-day conference which starts today at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre.

It is being hosted by the University of the West Indies, Association of Caribbean Universities and Research Institutes and United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). The conference will address the interest and special needs of leaders in the education sector and provide a forum for the public and key stakeholders to contribute to strategic thinking and planning in response to the epidemic. It will marshal and galvanise organised action by and within the education sector against HIV/AIDS and complement the efforts being made in other sectors of Government and within civil society.

Vice-Chancellor of UWI Professor Rex Nettleford will today welcome participants to the conference while UWI St Augustine campus principal Dr Bhoendradatt Tewarie will give opening remarks. An address on global and regional perspective on HIV/AIDS will be presented by director of the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC) Dr James Hospedales. Mme Helene-Marie Gosselin, director of UNESCO Office for the Caribbean, will give the keynote address. “This most important conference is taking part at a critical stage in the evolution of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS epidemic,” Professor Nettleford said recently. He said faculty (as teachers, researchers and part of the policy setting group) and students (as thinkers and future policy makers) in tertiary level institutions have a particularly important role to play in responding to the crisis.