Stephen Lewis

Stephen Lewis is the son of David Lewis, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party, and the grandson of Morris Lewis, a Polish Jewish activist of the Bund and of the Jewish Labour Committee in Montreal; his parents gave him the Hebrew name Sholem, from shalom, because he was born on Armistice Day. He led the Ontario NDP, served as Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, and from 2001 to 2006 was the UN Secretary-General's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, where he became the most insistent public voice on the epidemic. His foundation funds community organisations run by African grandmothers raising orphaned grandchildren.