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Hello and welcome to the
official website for the Elton John AIDS Foundation!
Most of you know me as a singer, songwriter, entertainer,
and composer, and I do dearly love performing
for and connecting with people through song. But
the most meaningful part of my public life is
my work as a humanitarian in the global effort
to end the AIDS epidemic.
Over the years, I have lost many dear friends
to this terrible disease. In the mid-1980’s,
I began channeling my grief into efforts to help
raise money for the pioneering charitable organizations
that formed during those dark, grim years to fund
AIDS research and provide vital services to people
with HIV/AIDS.
Then I met Ryan White. Ryan wasn’t the first
friend of mine to die of AIDS, nor the last, but
he taught me the most. People shut him out of
school, shot bullets into his home, and spread
lies about him. But Ryan didn’t hate them.
He knew they were uninformed and afraid. He knew
the real enemy was ignorance, and he forgave them.
Sitting with Ryan’s mother Jeanne at his
bedside as he lay dying in April of 1990 was one
of the most gut-wrenching experiences of my life.
I knew I had to do more.
In 1992, I decided to bring focus to all of my
AIDS-related work by establishing the Elton John
AIDS Foundation (EJAF) to help make emergency
funds available for the most basic needs in the
areas hardest hit by the epidemic and to counter
ignorance about HIV/AIDS with information. Within
a year, EJAF contributions had grown so rapidly
that we established a partnership with the National
AIDS Fund to award community grants nationwide
and also began making international grants to
community projects in the developing world.
Please take a few moments to browse the many features
and resources available on this website, to learn
more about EJAF’s urgent work, and to find
out how you can help. When our lives are done,
won’t we want it to be said that when we
saw millions of people suffering, millions more
at risk, millions more abandoned, a whole continent
in danger of dying – we stood up and REFUSED
to let it happen?
Forty million people are infected with HIV. Eight
thousand die every day. We have both the moral
obligation and the power to end this epidemic.
Do we have the will? I know I do, and I pledge
to remain committed to this cause for the rest
of my life. Won’t you join me?
Sir Elton John
Founder and Chairman
Elton John AIDS Foundation
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