Book launch: Powered by love: A Grandmothers' Movement to End AIDS in Africa

Panel member Cebile Dlamini, Coordinator at Swaziland Positive Living, speaks on her experience. *Photo copyright: Black Ottawa Scene*

Monday 23 October

About 40 people were on hand at the Desmarias Building at the University of Ottawa to witness the launch of the ground-breaking book: Powered by Love: A Grandmothers’ Movement to End AIDS in Africa. Presented by the Stephen Lewis Foundation and the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies, the event featured a panel discussion with: Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, co-author of the book and co-founder and Executive Director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation; Siphalele Khumalo, grandmother featured in the book with Swaziland Positive Living (SWAPOL); Cebile Dlamini, Coordinator at Swaziland Positive Living (SWAPOL) and a representative of the Unitarian GOgos. Community leader and activist Sarah Onyango was the Moderator, with final remarks by Professor Josephine Etowa of the University of Ottawa School of Nursing.

MORE ON POWERED BY LOVE…

www.grandmotherspoweredbylove.com

Written by Joanna Henry with Ilana Landsberg-Lewis. Edited by Michele Landsberg. Photographs by Alexis MacDonald. Published by Goose Lane Editions. $35

This is the untold story of AIDS in Africa.

We thought we knew what was happening in Africa when the AIDS pandemic raged across the continent, sweeping away 35 million lives. But we never knew it the way this book reveals it, in the shockingly intimate voices of the grandmothers who stepped in to raise their orphaned grandchildren when no one else was left alive.

A dynamic movement of grandmothers rallied in response. Starting in Canada and spreading across the globe, it now encompasses thousands of grandmothers on several continents. Together, resolute grandmothers in Africa and around the world are reclaiming hope and courageously saving lives. Their voices will leap straight into your heart. Their unguarded faces, in portraits that glow with character, pain and humour, will captivate you.

Powered by Love reveals the compelling journey of these indomitable women and a movement that now reaches around the globe, sharing their story in their own words.

Royalties from sales of Powered by Love will be directed to the Stephen Lewis Foundation to support organizations run by and for African grandmothers who are raising children orphaned by AIDS.