The Irish Aid Annual Professor Father Michael Kelly Lecture – 2021 was hosted online as part of a live web event under the theme: End Stigma and Discrimination

Date: Friday 3 December, 2021
Time: 13:00 to 15:00 Irish Time

View Event Recording

Download 15 Years of Insights on HIV and AIDS

• VIEW THE YOUTUBE PLAYLIST FROM THIS EVENT 
• LIFE AND WORK OF FATHER MICHAEL KELLY
• LISTEN TO THE FATHER MICHAEL KELLY PODCAST  

The annual Irish Aid Professor Father Michael Kelly HIV Lecture is held every year to coincide with World AIDS Day. The 2021 event was convened under the theme: End Stigma and Discrimination.

This special event incorporated a memorial to Professor Father Michael J. Kelly (1929 – 2021) and his work on HIV and AIDS that continues to impact and inspire. The live web event, moderated by Nadine Ferris France, Irish Global Health Network and Nicola Brennan, Irish Ambassador to Ethiopia, Dijbouti and South Sudan, featured keynote Winnie Byanyima (UNAIDS Executive Director), and a panel of outstanding speakers including: Dr Ailbhe Smyth, Prof. Sheila Tlou, and Liz Martin.

DOWNLOAD SPEAKER BIOS HERE 

About Professor Father Michael J Kelly

For over 50 years, Tullamore-born Professor Father Michael J. Kelly had worked tirelessly in the fight against HIV/AIDS in his naturalised country of Zambia, and internationally, spreading the message of strength, dignity, and hope for those affected and at risk.

In Memoriam: Professor Father Michael J. Kelly, 1929 – 2021

• For more information about Professor Father Michael Kelly, please visit this dedicated website.
• Read more about Professor Father Michael Kelly’s life and work
• To pay tribute to Father Michael Kelly’s ongoing legacy, the IGHN has produced a compilation of lectures and presentations from 2006-2015, entitled HIV & AIDS – A Deep Human Concern. Download it here.

Keynote Speaker:

Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director

Winnie Byanyima is the Executive Director of UNAIDS and an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. A passionate and longstanding champion of social justice and gender equality, Ms Byanyima leads the United Nations’ efforts to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. Ms Byanyima believes that health care is a human right and was an early champion of a People’s Vaccine against the coronavirus that is available and free of charge to everyone, everywhere. Before joining UNAIDS, Ms Byanyima served as the Executive Director of Oxfam International, a confederation of 20 civil society organizations working in more than 90 countries worldwide, empowering people to create a future that is secure, just and free from poverty.

Ms Byanyima was elected for three terms and served 11 years in the parliament of her country, Uganda. She led Uganda’s first parliamentary women’s caucus, championing ground-breaking gender equality provisions in the county’s 1995 post-conflict constitution.

Ms Byanyima led the establishment of the African Union Commission’s Directorate of Gender and Development and also served as Director of Gender and Development at the United Nations Development Programme. She founded the Forum for Women in Democracy, an influential Ugandan nongovernmental organization, and has been deeply involved in building global and African coalitions on social justice issues. A global leader on inequality, Ms Byanyima has co-chaired the World Economic Forum and served on the World Bank’s Advisory Council on Gender and Development, the International Labour Organization’s Global Commission on the Future of Work and the Global Commission on Adaptation. Ms Byanyima is a recipient of several awards, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, an honorary doctorate from Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada, and the 2018 Human Rights and Solidarity among Peoples Prize, awarded by the Latin American Council of Social Sciences.

• Discover more about Winnie here
• Learn more about UNAIDS and how you can take action here 

Panellists 

• Prof. Sheila Tlou

Prof. Sheila Tlou is Co-Chair of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition, Special Ambassador for the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, Champion of the Nursing Now Challenge, Trustee to the Board of the Florence Nightingale Foundation (FNF), and Advisory Board member for the Harvard Global Nursing Leadership Program.

She is former UNAIDS Regional Director and former Minister of Health of Botswana, where she led a comprehensive HIV/AIDS program that is still a model in Africa. She is Professor Emerita of the University of Botswana and former Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing and Midwifery Development in Primary Health Care.

As UNAIDS Regional Director, Prof. Tlou provided leadership and Political Advocacy for a sustainable AIDS response in 21 African countries. She holds a PhD in Nursing Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago., a Masters in Nursing Education from Columbia University, and a Master of Science in Nursing from the Catholic University of America. She has many publications on Human Rights and HIV/AIDS, and has received over 30 international awards for Leadership in Global Health, among them Botswana Presidential Order of Honor, Princess Srinagarindra award from Thailand, Christianne Reimann award from International Council of Nurses, and Princess Muna Al Hussein award from American Nurses Credentialing Centre. She is United Nations Eminent Person for Women, Girls, and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa.

• Learn more about Prof. Sheila here
• Learn more about the Global HIV Prevention Coalition  

• Dr Ailbhe Smyth

Ailbhe Smyth is a long-time campaigner on feminist, LGBTI+ and socialist issues. The founding head of Women’s Studies at University College Dublin, she has published widely on feminism, politics and culture.  She chaired the National Lesbian and Gay Federation (NXF) for several years, and is a board member of Women’s Aid, and also of Age Action, and is co-founder and Convenor of the Coalition to Repeal the 8^th Amendment. She chairs the board of Ballyfermot STAR Addiction Services.

Ailbhe was a Strategic Executive member of the Yes Equality (equal marriage) campaign in 2015. She has been fighting for women’s right to choose since the 1980s and was Co-Director of the Together for Yes national referendum campaign in 2018. She was named as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2019 for her work in repealing the 8^th Amendment.  Ailbhe is a regular contributor to media and national debate on feminist and LGBTQ issues.

• Discover more about Ailbhe here 
• Learn more about the work of Women’s Aid here

• Liz Martin, HIV Activist

Author of “Still Standing: An Irish Woman’s story of HIV and Hope. Liz is a mother of four, who has been living with HIV for the past 30 years. During this time, Liz has worked tirelessly challenging HIV related stigma and discrimination. Today she continues to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS in Ireland and overseas, bringing hope to others who feel they have no voice. 

• Listen to Liz read from her book and shares some of her experiences with the medical professionals and her community in Galway 

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It is important to remember that HIV and AIDS has not gone away. And more than ever, we must call on all communities to redouble efforts so that the progress thus far achieved is not eroded. An important learning of the HIV response is that it a true global health challenge, that like COVID-19 does not recognise borders.