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More than 2000 persons from across English, Dutch, French and Spanish speaking Caribbean gathered on Friday, November 18, 2011 for the Opening Ceremony for the 2011 Caribbean HIV Conference. This is the largest scientific ever held in the Caribbean with individuals representing a wide range of interests, perspectives, and backgrounds in forming a collaborative and sustainable response to the HIV epidemic in the region.
In a release issued by the Conference Secretariat they highlighted that:
The theme for this year’s conference, Strengthening Evidence To Achieve Sustainable Action, focuses on identifying a viable path that can be maintained in the future regional response to HIV. “In the process of identifying the theme for this Conference, we reviewed the Caribbean’s HIV experience over the last three decades or so, and identified two critical and related concepts that we felt should be central to the Conference program—sustainability and the importance of evidence in guiding the strategies that will attain this goal,” said Conference Planning Committee member Roger McLean of the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. “Sustainability is a key challenge facing the regional HIV response, and, to confront it effectively, we need to carefully evaluate what has and hasn’t worked well previously, share good practices and lessons learned, and work together in their application through more integrated approaches.”
One of the highlights of the ceremony was a performance of ‘Sometimes I Cry’ by Sheryl Lee Ralph who used the occasion to share about her first encounter with HIV and AIDS in 1981. According to Ralph, during her Broadway debut of Dream Girls, many gay men were dying from AIDS and neglected by people. She said that at the time HIV was known as “gay related disease (GRID). Today, HIV is transmitted mainly through heterosexual sex but people still refuse to accept this.
Ralph challenged conference participants not to let denial be deeper than their grave. “We have been silent for too long and our silence will not heal us … our silence will not save us,” she said.
Bahamian Prime Minister, Hon. Hubert Alexander Ingraham delivered the key note address.
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