Charles Wilson
The United Religions Initiative's (URI) third annual Circles of Light Gala will honor the
Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) and its leaders, Charles Wilson, The Rev. William Rankin and Jones Laviwa for their work providing community-based HIV/AIDS prevention and care in resource-poor countries.
A San Francisco-based international interfaith organization, URI encourages practical grassroots efforts to promote interfaith cooperation, end religiously motivated violence and create cultures of peace, justice and healing around the world.
The gala will be held February 4 at the World Trade Club in San Francisco.
Wilson, a UCSF Professor Emeritus and former chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, helped to found URI and served on URI 's first international board of directors. He is considered one of the world's top neurosurgeons.
Currently, Wilson is affiliated with The Institute for the Future, where he co-directs the New Consumer, New Genetics program, examining the intersection of human behavior, agriculture, nutrition and health. He has authored more than 600 scientific articles, chapters, and books. In 1999, the New Yorker profiled him as an example of a rare form of physical genius, comparable to Yo-Yo Ma.
Founded just five years ago, URI now engages more than one million individuals in 60 nations. Drawn from 120 different faith traditions, URI members have organized themselves into more than 300 cooperation circles - voluntary interfaith groups that work locally, nationally and internationally to address the causes and consequences of religiously motivated division and violence.
URI cooperation circles have helped reconcile hostile religious factions in the Philippines, rescued child soldiers in Uganda, and advocated for indigenous rights in the US and Latin America.
Wilson and Rev. Rankin founded GAIA in 2000. They quickly connected with Laviwa, who leads a Cooperation Circle in the south-central African nation of Malawi, where about 15 percent of adults are HIV-positive.
The GAIA supports village-level initiatives which prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS through education, empowerment to women and families, voluntary HIV testing and counseling, clothing, food, school supplies, and care to those sick and dying from the disease.
"We have been able to reach over 40,000 women, men, and children through our support of small, faith-based organizations," said Amy Rankin-Williams, GAIA's development director.
GAIA partners with organizations throughout the United States to provide these life-sustaining activities, raising both awareness and funds through the support of individuals, foundations and congregations. In 2003, GAIA received a one-million dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fund the three year Women's Empowerment Project. This unique, grassroots project employs over 125 women in 37 villages to go from dwelling to dwelling, delivering care, counseling those with HIV/AIDS, and monitoring the distribution of clothing, food, and medicine to orphans.
Links:
Wilson Wins 'Gentle Giant Award'
The Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance
United Religions Initiative
