Fanta Ongoiba - Africans in Partnership Against AIDS
Posted on Jun 28, 2016
The Rotary Club of Toronto Sunrise welcomed Fanta Ongoiba, Executive Director, APAA, as our guest speaker to speak about Africans in Partnership Against AIDS (APAA). APAA is a volunteer driven, charitable AIDS Service Organization serving the African communities in Toronto.
Fanta shared her experience of receiving a phone call requesting assistance communicating with a patient in hospital some years ago. From this experience she identified a gap in the community providing support in a linguistically and culturally appropriate manner to African people living with HIV/AIDS, their partners, family and friends.Pedro presented Fanta with a cheque in the amount of $1,600 which was raised through our involvement in the Rotary Poker Walk for HIV/AIDS held in April.
Mary Lou Harrison thanked Fanta for her presentation.As a first in recent memory, the club meeting was conducted in english and french, making the information more accessible for a visiting Rotarian from Morocco, Maria Bensouda. Members with varying experience speaking french took the opportunity to do a little practice. In the end, Jameel Rahman expressed the sentiment of many members, "I proud that we conducted a club meeting in both official languages of Canada."
Clark Ferguson exchanged the club banner with Maria Bensouda, a visiting Rotarian from the Club Rotary Spartel Tanger, Morocco. Les membres et les invités du Club Rotary de Toronto Sunrise ont apprécié la réalisation d'une réunion bilingue ce matin. Merci à Fanta et Maria pour nous rejoindre et faire de cette journée spéciale.