Laurier professor’s leadership builds African-led HIV and AIDS research capacity

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News release:

WATERLOO – Laurier professor Alan Whiteside is providing his extensive expertise in HIV and AIDS research to lead a training and mobilization project advocating for African-led scholarship. Whiteside will be the lead researcher on a grant to Laurier from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to build research and publication capacity among African researchers. The grant will support Whiteside’s training and mobilization project advocating for African-led scholarship in support of the African Journal of AIDS Research.

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Of wedding and remote Ontario

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This post was begun at Bark Lake in Northern Ontario. According to Google Maps the journey should take about four hours from Waterloo, and indeed my GPS (sat nav) was of the same opinion. I was invited to attend the wedding of Katharine Hagerman and Hani Morsy. The connection and reason for the invitation was that she spent time at HEARD, in Johannesburg and then Cape Town. I was invited some time ago and as I was in the country, it took place over the Labour Day long weekend, and before the term had started, it was an excellent opportunity to get out of Waterloo and share a celebration.

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On The Road and Looking Back

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It has been busy. I left Waterloo at the end of June heading back to the unexpected UK Brexit vote. It was quite unbelievable, this means Scotland will certainly seek independence and I would not be surprised if Wales and Northern Ireland don’t follow suit. The reason for being in England was the first ever Whiteside family gathering, organised in North Walsham, the town where my father was born on the 27th July 1899. The initiative to have this gathering came from my 82 year old half-sister Pat de Pury. Continue reading →

Heavy Fog in Channel – Continent Cut Off

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The heading of this blog was the headline in the London Times on October 22, 1957. At least, when I Googled the source, that is what the Harvard International Review of summer 2012 alleged. With results of the referendum now in, it feels as though the island has now cut itself from Europe, and done so willingly. I will return to this later in the blog.

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Fit | Unfit

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The following post was written by Jessica Powell, Master of International Public Policy 2015-2016, The Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo, Canada

I have been in and out of various gyms for years. I will just start to make progress, then life gets busy and I stop attending for a while. And each time I want to start working out again, I think to myself, ‘I need to build up confidence before I can return to a gym. I have to lose some weight before I feel comfortable being in a gym’.

I have recently realized I am not the only one who feels uncomfortable in this environment. I believe fitness institutions have become places for elite users. The divide between those who are fit and those who are unfit has been increased by a ‘fitness culture’ which marginalizes those who are in average or less-than-average shape, and this deters regular people from beginning their own fitness journey.

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Hot Hotels and Celebrations

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I turned 60 in March and wrote about the party I hosted in Canada in a recent blog. However there were three of my close friends at Waterford Kamhlaba School in Swaziland who were not able to be present. The four of us have remained in contact, and in 2006 we celebrated, over a period of time, our 50th birthdays. At the beginning of May this year, John Salisbury, who lives in Plymouth, in the UK, organised his 60th event. It was amazing. He and his wife hired an old fort on a hill overlooking the city. This is a Landmark Trust building. The officers’ quarters are available as bedrooms (in various configurations from two to four to a room), and there is a kitchen, lounge and across the courtyard, an excellent party venue with a bar and dance floor. The walls of the fort have magnificent cannon at various intervals. People who hire the place have it completely to themselves, and once the huge wooden main gate is locked and barred, guests really are completely on their own! It would be a good setting for a murder mystery. I can strongly recommend going to the website and having a look at this magnificent location. It is also very reasonably priced as a venue, if there are enough people sharing it.

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Spring²

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Travelling from Waterloo in Ontario to Norwich in Norfolk at the end of April was like moving a month forward in nature’s calendar. In Waterloo the snow piled high in the car park at Seagram Lofts finally melted. On the day I left there was just one small patch of moisture left on the paving. It had been so large it spread across five visitor’s parking spots and was probably five meters in height. The temperature had risen significantly and it was possible to leave my coat in the apartment, at least for the 70 second walk across the car park to the back door of the office building. However there were no leaves or blossom and just a few spring flowers dotted in the gardens and parks around the city.

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The Sixties, a Good decade?

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Last month marked a significant event in my life. On the 18th of March I turned 60. I must admit to being quite shocked by the fact this birthday finally arrived. It had to be noticed and marked in some way. We talked about Ailsa coming over to Canada, but as I am teaching, marking, and busy with the end of term, we decided she would come over a little later. She, Douglas and I have all been granted permanent residence, and all have to be here and visit the appropriate agency before the 7th June. If we don’t do that then we enter a bureaucratic limbo land. Douglas visits in early April and Ailsa in May.

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A (relatively) mild Winter

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As the month of February drew to a close, we experienced some heavy snowfall in Waterloo. The temperature was not too dreadful, only just above freezing. It was pleasurable to walk through gently falling snow but not feel absolutely frozen. At the end of the month, it warmed up a little so that all the snow on the grass and roads melted, to leave the piles from the roads and paths. The way it works, (for non-Canadian readers), is that snowploughs push all the snow off the public places: parking areas, roads, and pavements into large heaps. These sit and gradually melt over the course of the first few months of spring. Of course, they are not pristine mountains of white, becoming rather dirty grey.

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Snowfalls and Sunshine

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This winter in Waterloo has been quite different from the previous two years. Then the temperature plummeted and remained in the minus figures for months. It was absolutely freezing for ages. Today at the end of January the temperature is projected to reach at least 3°, rain is forecast, and some, at least, of the snow will be melted by Monday. Given that we are also experiencing brilliantly sunlit days it means the winter months have been considerably more enjoyable. I am able to venture out without any gloves, although given the challenge of not having hair; a hat remains a crucial piece of equipment. Indeed, at lunch time, I am able to make the 70 second walk from the back door of the office to the side door of the apartment without taking my coat or putting on my snow boots.

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