and we are honored today to be joined by three very respected panelists, we have sandy thurman to my left who is the chief strategy officer for the office of the global aids coordination and many of you know sandy from her long work in this arena. and in the middle we have mark frank mueller the director of the center for faith-based initiatives at usaid and janet kates at the kaiser family foundation. you have their full bios in the handout so i won't go into all of the details, but you can see that we have a very -- a very important panel up here and we are eager to dive into some interesting discussion on this. i think we all know in the first panel made very clear the importance of engaging with and understanding the role of the faith-based communities in providing global health, in providing information, especially in reaching communities, the poorest of the poor, the hard to reach areas. i'm reminded of a time not long ago when i was in it ethiopia and interviewed an orthodox priest and we were talking about family planning and i asked him what message he gave to his followers a

sandy thurman to my left who is the chief strategy officer for the office of the global aids coordinator many of you no sandy from her long work in this arena. the director of the center for faith-based and community initiatives. and on the far end we have the vp and dir.vice president and director of global health and hiv family foundation. you have their full bios a man out. you can see that we have a very illustrious and important panel command we are eager to dive in the interest discussion. i think we all no the 1st panel make clear the importance of engaging with an understanding the role of the faith-based communities in providing the health and providing information, especially hard-to-reach areas. i am reminded of the time not long ago when ii was in ethiopia interviewing and orthodox priest talking about family planning and i asked him what message he gave his followers. he said roughly translated: family planning is not ascend. hundred children as soon. it is just a fascinating lens through which we can see again the importance of faith leaders in the information that they can

we have sandy thurman. many of you know her from her long work. in the middle we have mark who is the director of the center for faith-based and community initiatives at usaid. and we have jen who is the director of global health and h.i.v. policies at the kaiser family foundation. you have their full bios in the handouts so i won't go into all the details. you can see we have a very illustrious, very important panel up here and we are either -- we are eager to dive into some interesting discussion on this. i think we all know and the first panel made very clear the importance of engaging with and understanding the role of the faith-based communities in providing global health and provide information. especially in reaching communities, the poorest of the poor, hard to reach areas. i'm reminded of a time not long ago when i was in ethiopia and interviewing an orthodox priest and we were talking about family planning and i asked him what message he gave to his followers and he said, roughly translated family planning isn't a sin, hungry children is

and i think to begin with we'll turn to sandy thurman. given your long involvement with hiv policy from the u.s. government can you describe to us more about how pep far began partners with faith-based organizations and how that has evolved. >> sure. thank you. and thank you all for being here. it is interesting, the faith community has been a partner in response to hiv since the beginning of the epidemic both domestically and globally. so i think pet far was an out growth with faith-based organizations on the domestic side for a number of years. when we really began looking at the disproportionate impact of the epidemic in africa back in the late 1990s and early 2000, it was a lot -- our interest and a lot of the pressure that was brought to bear on the u.s. government and policymakers was from faith-based organizations who were on the ground in africa seeing the devastation that was occurring on the continent. so they've been a natural partner for us faith-based organizations and faith backers have been a natural partner with those of u