In 1997, in addition to his work at UNICEF, Mr. Lewis was appointed by the Organization of African Unity (precursor to the African Union) to a Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the Genocide in Rwanda. “Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide” was published in June 2000.

In 2001, Stephen was appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as his special envoy for HIV and AIDS in Africa. Throughout his travels, Stephen was confronted by the ravages of AIDS: overflowing medical wards, endless funerals, and village after village with people—often young women—in the throes of death. 

His personal connections with the people he met informed the urgency of his message to the global community: that the expertise needed to confront the pandemic resided with the communities most affected. With this in mind, in 2003 Stephen recruited his daughter, Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, to create a foundation to support HIV and AIDS grassroots organizations in sub-Saharan Africa. Over a kitchen table, the Stephen Lewis Foundation was born.

Within a few short years, the Foundation was raising $10 million a year from supporters, many of whom were inspired by Stephen’s message and his unparalleled gift for oratory. He was brilliant and loquacious, and possessed a seemingly encyclopedic list of facts and figures, but the real power behind his fiery speeches was that they came from the heart. 

A committed feminist—values Stephen credited his wife, Michele Landsberg, with instilling—he knew gender inequality was driving the AIDS pandemic. He saw women denied treatment, women who were victims of violence, and women living with HIV who had the caretaking burden for their families and households.

And while women were at the centre of the community response, they were not afforded the same access to the international stage. “Somehow the women have been excluded from making the decisions,” he said. “And that’s not an accident.”

Often, those women were grandmothers. In August 2006, the SLF hosted the first Grandmothers Gathering in Toronto: an unprecedented meeting of 300 Canadian and African grandmothers that launched the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign. By its 15th anniversary in 2021, the campaign had raised $40 million for community-based organizations supporting African grandmothers.

Stephen was relentless in his calls for greater access to testing and treatment, increased global funding, and the political will to end the pandemic. In 2007, his determination to expose the systemic injustices underlying AIDS led him to co-found with Paula Donovan the international advocacy organization AIDS-Free World. He continued demanding the world’s attention on issues of global inequity, including access to vaccines, and climate change.

In 2021, he spoke of the determination of the Foundation’s partners to forge ahead in the face of COVID-19. He joyfully wrote of the recognition by the world’s aid agencies—finally—of community-based interventions. “Africa knows what it takes to withstand the ferocity of contagious diseases. What we have is the triumph of community-based prevention, treatment and care,” he proudly proclaimed.

Stephen Lewis was a Companion of the Order of Canada, recipient of the Pearson Peace medal, and the World Pride Human Rights Award. Among his many esteemed roles, he served as an advisory committee member to Human Rights Watch Canada, as a commissioner on the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, and he served terms on the boards of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and on the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.  He received 42 honorary doctorates from Canadian and American universities.

Stephen is survived by his wife, Michele Landsberg, their three children, Ilana, Avi, and Jenny, and four grandchildren, Zev, Yoav, Zimri, and Toma, and by his siblings Michael Lewis, Janet Solberg, and Nina Libeskind and their families.

His legacy will live on through the work of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, our staff, volunteers, supporters, and partners. We remain steadfast in continuing the work he believed in so deeply.