We are excited to announce that we have formed a new partnership with AIDS Bow Valley, another regional AIDS service working in the Banff area (see their mandate below). AIDS Bow Valley will be joining The Mountain Movement and HIV West Yellowhead, our regional partner in Jasper, for the planning of the Banff-Jasper Servers Against AIDS Day this upcoming summer!

Each organization will be allocating a few of their volunteers to recruiting restaurants, promoting the cause, and collecting donations. Like last year, half of the money will be going towards The Stephen Lewis Foundation and have the money raised in Banff and Jasper will respectively be given to AIDS Bow Valley and HIV West Yellowhead. We are thrilled with the prospects for this event! The Mountain Movement will be there to offer support, recruit restaurants, and work alongside the regional services in executing the event. We have not yet picked a day for the event, but we will be promoting that in the weeks to come. Stay tuned!

The mandate of AIDS Bow Valley “is to serve the mountain resort communities of Banff, Canmore, Lake Louise, Kananaskis as well as Exshaw and Morley by providing community outreach through prevention education, awareness, referrals, counseling, and support to residents, seasonal workers, and visitors who are affected by, at risk of, or nfected with HIV/AIDS or STDs.”

Dear Mountain Movement Team,

We are currently freezing in the Great White North after an adventurous month-long hiking/camping/backpacking tour of Caribbean!

After spending the winter out in Eastern Canada, the next step for us is a move to the Rockies, and a more permanent one, for both personal and professional reasons. The Mountain Movement has followed us wherever we go, and it will inevitably follow us back to the mountains as well.

At this point in our lives, we are expecting to have to commit to our professional lives to a greater extent. For this reason, we will continue to simplify The Mountain Movement campaign to make it a more manageable project. Our plan is to focus on a single event this summer, a Banff/Jasper Servers Against AIDS Day. We will call on the help of our partners at HIV West Yellowhead in Jasper and see if we can coordinate this event together. The event would offer funding to both the Stephen Lewis Foundation and regional AIDS services.

As usual, we would like the primary focus of the campaign to be on awareness. The website has been an asset in disseminating information with regards to news about issues with AIDS in Africa and around the world, events and rallies going on at the national level, the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign, and HIV/AIDS in Canada. We want ‘The Mountain Movement’ to be a state of mind above all – a way of thinking beyond our everyday existence, and in turn using our ‘everydayness’ to raise awareness and funds for a great cause.

This month, all we ask you to do is read this notice put out by the SLF with regards to extra funding in Kenya. Many of the 32 grassroots groups the SLF supports in that country have been affected by the violent outbreaks following the elections. http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/kenya_update.htm

Thank you for your ongoing support – we mean that in the most genuine way.

Meghan and Paul