With the world-renowned Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, headed by president of the International AIDS Society Julio Montaner, Vancouver is seen as being at the forefront of international AIDS research. Haiti? With an HIV prevalence rate 12.7 times that of Canada (according to UNICEF figures), not so much.

But that hasn’t prevented the Panos Institute of Canada, a Vancouver-based non-profit group, from bringing a team of Haitians who are leading the battle against AIDS to Canada to share their knowledge.

On Wednesday (November 26), the group of visitors, which includes three actors who use street theatre to educate youth about AIDS, will visit the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa to brief officials about the situation in Haiti.

On Thursday they’ll then fly to Vancouver for a number of meetings and events. Their visit will culminating in a public dialogue at SFU on World AIDS Day on Monday, December 1, with Montaner.

In a new release, John Tinker, Panos’s executive director, said: “For years, foreign experts have descended on Haiti. To often, they effectively undermine and devalue the Haitian experience. We are deliberately reversing this.”