by Christine McLaren
VANCOUVER, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- Love is what filled the Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver Thursday evening at Voices of Hope, the annual national World AIDS Day concert and celebration.
Hosted by Bill Richardson, a radio personality from Canada's public broadcasting channel CBC Radio 2, the concert features amateur and professional Vancouver artists who entertained the audience with music ranging from the upbeat to reflective, and theatrical to folk.
"First and foremost Voices of Hope is remembrance and celebration," said Maxine Davis, executive director of the Dr. Peter Foundation.
Since 2008, three of Canada's leading HIV/AIDS organizations -- Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation, Maison du Parc and Casey House -- have partnered to produce the Voices of Hope concerts in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto.
"That sense of people of a common mission supporting each other throughout the country, it's a lovely, lovely feeling," said Davis.
The Dr. Peter Center provides care for over 400 people living in Vancouver with HIV/AIDS each year through their daytime and residential care programs, providing nursing, therapy, medication maintenance, food, counseling, and community support to those with the greatest need.
But while the funds collected in the donation bin at the concert's entrance go toward maintaining those programs, Voices of Hope is far more about the music than it is about the money -- a force that Dr. Peter Center Music Therapist Carolyn Neapole says, is just as powerful.
"I do feel like music is one of the more unifying things that we have in this world, and what I mean by that is that pretty much everybody, no matter where you come from or what your background, music would play a role in your life," said Neapole.
Approximately 65,000 people are currently living with HIV/AIDS in Canada, and each year 3,300 new people become infected.
But this year's World AIDS Day theme is "Getting to Zero" -- zero new infections, and zero deaths from HIV/AIDS. That means this year's Voices of Hope is also a reminder that despite all the great work being done at the Dr. Peter Center and around the world for HIV/AIDS, there is still much more to be done to get those numbers down to zero.
"These days generally the people who are getting AIDS are the people who are marginalized in society, so they're the people who fall through the cracks and the people who generally don't get the attention we should give them, and it's really easy for them to get sick," Neapole said.
"This is an attempt, I think, through music and through community, to try to just raise awareness, keep it at the forefront of people's minds that we're still fighting a fight that's not over yet."
Special Report: World AIDS Day 2011
