fight elsewhere.While, many have moved on, yet, those who stay have kept their promise to continue fighting HIV and AIDS in all its dimensions. For what it’s worth, the HIV pandemic brings with it complex social, political, immigration, social justice and economical issues few in the 1990 wanted to challenge.

The challenge that came after the overthrow of the elected government, of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, forced more than 30,000 Haitians to flee Haiti to seek political asylum in the US and many found themselves in the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay after being tested HIV positive. In the beginning of this human saga, both elected President George Bush and candidate for President, Bill Clinton, were muted and embraced political posture to a complex problem rather than suggesting a fair and humanitarian solution. It was not until the engagement of a young Yale University’s lawyer by the name of Harold Koh and law students from the same University that the Haitian saga began to turn around.

Being motivated by the spirit of social justice and his own history of refugee, Professor Koh began toorganize legal experts around the country and law students at other universities to challenge the injustice, the discrimination facing Haitians in Guantanamo Bay and presenting their cases to Judge Johnson Sterling in the Supreme Court in the state of New York. Keeping their promises to make a difference, and knowing the climate of politics and Haitian refugees with HIV, Professor Koh and law students began to increase their level of organizing by informing and educating the US public about the threat of human rights’ violations in Guantanamo on Haitian refugees and their HIV status.

Having the wisdom that this fight will require robust organizing, they began to travel around the country to engage grassroot organizations, legal entities, national activists such Rev Jessie Jackson, national AIDS advocate agencies such ACT-UP and Haitian organizations in New York, Miami and Boston. After years of legal advocacies and litigation, Professor Koh and his many “invisible collaborators’ won the liberation of the Haitian refugees from the detention of Guantanamo.

In the spirit of “keeping the promise” with the 18th World AIDS Day and JOUNEN MONDYAL SIDA, we want to celebrate the gallant effort by Professor Koh and his “invisible students and collaborators”. While they were not public health practitioners, at the phase of the HIV epidemic they played an important role to educate people around the US and the rest of the world about HIV and its stigma. In many ways, their contribution accelerates the cause of social justice that people living with HIV are people too and they deserve the right to treatment, care and shelter. In their social justice wisdom, they understood that to stop the spread of HIV; we must “keep the promise” to embrace all persons living with HIV and invite them to be partners with us all in stopping the pandemic spread of HIV. For those who are still engaging, we have kept your promise and have worked very hard to include HIV consumers who are able and ready in all aspects of this fight to bring their contributions to stop the spread of HIV.

Today, Professor Koh is the dean of the Law School at Yale University and he is still energetically committed to engage law students into the fight for social justice. For the rest of the “invisible students like Mike Wishnie, Brandt Goldstein and others they have all completed their law degrees at Yale and have moved on and took with them this rich social justice and life experience to great legal institutions around the US.

We are indeed honor by their bravery, sacrifice and commitment to improve the quality of life of Haitians and in so doing, we will keep the promise to always apply and integrate into our public health, medical and social interventions the best social justice practices to stop the spread of HIV.