Sant'Egidio's Dream

How a People’s Movement Is Meeting the Challenge of AIDS in Africa and Shaping the Future of Global Health

Monday, March 25, 2024
4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. EDT
Location: Healy Hall Riggs Library Map

In 2002, the Community of Sant'Egidio, a Rome-based Catholic NGO, took a fresh approach to the care of people with AIDS in Mozambique. Instead of pursuing a lavishly funded, large-scale effort at prevention, it involved ordinary Mozambicans, European doctors, and lay volunteers in a "triple therapy" treatment program, enabling people who are HIV+ to survive and thrive. The forthcoming book, Sant'Egidio's Dream (May 2024), tells the story of the program, which is now present in 10 countries, has seen patients in 8 million visits to 50 clinics, and has trained 15,000 health care volunteers; through it, 200,000 babies born to mothers who are HIV+ are free of the virus. The DREAM program has become a model for how citizen action, religious faith, and intercultural cooperation can meet public health challenges worldwide.

This event featured author Roberto Morozzo della Rocca, a professor of modern history at the University of Roma Tre; Mario Marazziti, a former Italian parliamentarian who has taken key roles in Sant'Egidio's humanitarian efforts worldwide; and Katherine Marshall, a Berkley Center senior fellow whose decades of experience in development work in Africa has led to regular and fruitful encounters with Sant'Egidio. Berkley Center Senior Fellow Paul Elie, who wrote the book's afterword, moderated the conversation.

This event was co-sponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; Global Health Institute; and African Studies Program at Georgetown University. 

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