Thank you Note

Dear Everyone:

In the capacity of Chief Executive, I must now say a big thank you to all of you as our sponsors, hosts, guest speakers, and participants. 

This year, the Forum was hosted by the Hong Kong AIDS Foundation along with substantial support from our counterparts from the Mainland, Macau and Taiwan. This year’s Forum has finally come to an end and it was a great success. We have spent nine months planning this event from conceiving the theme, organising the logistics, finding sponsors, organising the Scientific Committee, sending invitations, to putting all actions into a real EVENT.

It was definitely a mammoth task, especially when dealing with so many parties and so many ideas from everyone that we had to listen to, digest and find compromises. Fortunately, we had YOU as our partners in the capacity of sponsors, hosts, speakers, S.O.C members, organising members, and co-organizers, so that only the most constructive advice, insights and useful comments were received to ensure a smoothly running Forum. Without all YOU, the Forum would not have been the success it indeed was.

This Forum itself was also a milestone event as it was the very first HIV-related conference co-organized by Four regions (Beijing, Hong Kong, Macau & Taiwan), involving more than 100 – 150 guests after the conclusion of the COVID pandemic. Finally, almost all participants from the various locations were able to attend the two-day Forum physically, not virtually.

And the topic chosen that has touched people’s hearts was also the very first challenging issue for all of us at the Hong Kong AIDS Foundation. As an NGO serving not only populations at-risk, we knew the quality of life of people living with HIV should also be equally significant. Therefore, with the tradition of the Forum being held in a two-day format (since 2020, the 1st AIDS Forum), we put the focus of the latest HIV vaccines and HIV treatment on Day 1 among other topics; whilst on Day 2, the focuses were on both the quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS, as well as the exploration of an effective cooperation between frontline workers in the Mainland and other Asian regions (not only Hong Kong) in a bid to echo UNAIDS’ current target that the enhanced level of quality of life of people living with HIV and people at risk through the support of more tailor-made psychological approaches should be achieved by 2030.

In our vision for this Forum, we targeted to invite experts to participate into the Forum from the National STD AIDS Center, NGO representatives as well as leading minds in AIDS prevention and control, not only from the Mainland but across other Asian regions, and we finally did that. Another achievement was that we received overwhelming responses with no fewer than 150 attendees on both days. It was a fantastic result. And I know the fantastic attendance rate was due in no small part to these reasons:

1. The top-notch quality of our speakers, including the depth and width of their presentations; 2. The trust from all participants in the Hong Kong AIDS Foundation

The main purpose of the Forum was to enhance deeper cooperation between non-governmental organizations located in Hong Kong, the Mainland, Macau and Taiwan.  And, we achieved that.   With this in mind, besides expressing our most sincere gratitude to The Honorable John LEE Ka-Chiu, GBM, SBS, PDSM, PMSM, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong, for the Opening Remarks (Video), we are now able to sit down and spend time to express our most genuine appreciation for the following ladies and gentlemen: They are our officiating guests, they are our sponsors, they are our guest speakers, they are our hosts, and they are also our special supporters by means of providing us with the most solid support to make this Forum happen:

Dr. LEE Ha-Yun, Libby, JP
Dr. Erasmus U. MORAH
Professor David Da-I HO
Professor CHEN Zhiwei
Mr. HAO Yang
Dr. SHANG Hong
Dr. JIN Ronghua
Ms. WANG Xinlun
Ms. SHEN Jie
Dr. LEONG Iek Hou
Dr. Chien-Chin HUNG
Dr. Patrick LI
Dr. Owen TSANG
Dr. Man Po LEE
Dr. Wilson LAM
Dr. ZHANG Fu Jie
Mr. HAN Mengjie
Dr. ZHAO Hongxin
Ms. Sun Sun LAU
Dr. Lisa YIP
Ms. CHAN Shan
Dr. Barry K H TAM
Dr. Jacky CHAN
Dr. Paul HSU
Prof. Nai-Ying KO
Dr. HAN Jing
Ms. LEONG Mei Pou
Mr. Midnight POONKASETWATTANA
Prof. Phoenix Kit-Han MO
Dr. Chien-Yu CHENG
Mr. Kelvin Wai Ip U
Mr. LI Zhennan
Mr. Ben CHEN
Mr. Colby LI
李慧女士
徐慧芳女士
段君义先生
楊杰先生
吳冬玲女士
賀喜先生
Barry & Martin’s Trust
Gilead Sciences Hong Kong Limited
GlaxoSmithKline plc
Hactl (Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited)
Prince Jewellery & Watch Limited
SA SA COSMETIC COMPANY LIMITED

Thank you for all your help. Thank you for your willingness to act as our partners. And in two years, I hope to see you again in Macau, the next hosting region, at the 8th AIDS Forum.

Ms. Sun Sun LAU

Chief Executive

Hong Kong AIDS Foundation