Welcome to planning a meeting in Rwanda, Africa. "I've never worked so hard in my life," said Sheila Stampfli, president of Courtesy Associates (and former PCMA Education Foundation chair), who took on the challenge to plan the 2007 PEPFAR (President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) HIV/AIDS Implementers' Meeting in mid-June in Kigali, Rwanda. Rwanda was chosen to host the meeting in recognition of the country's leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Stampfli has been a meeting professional for more than 40 years, and this, she said, was by far the most difficult meeting she has ever organized. It was also the most rewarding. "In this group, people just went with the flow and they were so appreciative. So many people thanked us and realized how hard this job must have been."

A Local DMC Provides a Lifeline
A young African woman, Vickie Wangare-Kihoro from a local destination management company (DMC), worked with Stampfli's team from the beginning. She was on site, communicating with the government and locals, making sure the details of the meeting were understood and tasks accomplished. Wangare-Kihoro kept everyone on schedule - especially the workers constructing the tents needed for the meeting. "It would have been impossible to pull it off without that kind of person on the ground," Stampfli said. "She was one of 'their own,' and that helped. She was a great go-between and liaison."

In all foreign countries, there are cultural differences visitors must respect. But Rwanda's recent history required exceptional sensitivity: the 1994 genocide of more than one million people in 90 days. In preparation for this meeting, Stampfli invited a former Rwandan ambassador to speak to her team. Her staff was cautioned against asking people how the genocide affected them or whether they were a Hutu or a Tutsi. The Rwandans are kind, good people, but not as direct as Americans, they learned. Rwandans want to take some time to get to know a person before doing business with them, much less discussing an intensely personal and painful past.

Because there was so much work to be done, Stampfli began sending her team, two at a time, to begin on-site work after Memorial Day. Stampfli said that even with "nine A-type personalities" checking things three times, everything that could go wrong did. "A lot of our deliveries were delayed," said Stampfli. She was exasperated to find that customs officers needed a letter from the "right person" to release the delivery; without guidance, it was up to her to discover who the right person was, and how and where to find him or her.

Logistical Nightmares
All meeting planners worry about having heads in beds and rears in seats, but those concerns took on epic proportions at the Rwanda meeting. The largest logistical problem was housing: only several hundred hotel rooms for 1,700 attendees. So the Rwandan government helped arrange for residents to open up their private homes and apartments to the delegates.

Now, Stampfli needed to get the delegates from their Rwandan home accommodations to the meeting site. A shuttle system was set up. Buses were brought in from other parts of Rwanda, 43 bus routes were created, bus stops designated, and drivers trained, to transport the attendees on roads with no names. "You don't know if it's going to work because it's never been done before," Stampfli said. They also worked with the government and airlines to add more flights to Kigali, Rwanda, for the meeting's attendees. Amazingly, the transportation went off without any major hitches.

But there were numerous other challenges that Stampfli and her team couldn't see coming. For example, no corkboard was available for the 97 poster boards, so solid wood was used instead. Pushpins don't work very well in solid wood. "We got them set up and half of them fell down. We had to set them back up again," Stampfli said. They all took turns making sure the poster boards stayed up. And then it rained and the ground beneath the posters became wet and muddy, complicating the process even further.

After the General Session Tent was built for 2,000 people, not enough chairs were available. Chairs from China had to be shipped over. Air conditioning was installed, and audiovisual equipment, computers, and electronics were set up and ready to go, even with few extension cords available. However, even after huge generators were humming along, not enough power was available to run all of this equipment at one time. "Electricity was spotty," Stampfli said. PowerPoint slides flickered on the screen, while speakers continued their talks without sound from the microphone.

Surprisingly, Stampfli said, none of these major inconveniences annoyed the attendees … but then these are people who are used to working in communities with limited resources. They were so grateful to have the opportunity to meet, that a hiccup that would normally have had attendees aghast, was taken in stride. "They really are the most caring, positive people that I have met in a long time," Stampfli said.

The mammoth 13,000-square-foot General Session Tent transformed the whole atmosphere of the park. There was also a tent for 600 built for meals, as well as a press tent, a medical tent, and a respite tent for people with AIDS. "It worked beautifully," Stampfli said.

Local restaurants banded together to import catering equipment, enabling them to serve the attendees breakfast and lunch in three different locations. They also built men's and women's bathrooms for the event.

For networking, there were 21 luncheon roundtables at three locations each day, 13 plenary sessions, and 82 breakouts with morning and afternoon tea breaks. "There was a huge amount of learning going on," Stampfli said. There were even evening sessions from 6 to 8 p.m. "People would just come together, sit down, and talk."

For Stampfli and her team, it was clear that this was an exceptional group. Called implementers, they're the doctors, nurses, social workers, and educators on the front lines in African villages and other countries working with adults and children with HIV/AIDS and teaching others prevention methods. Meeting together to talk with other implementers, sharing success and failure stories, could make a difference in actual lives saved.

"I will long remember the people who came to this meeting," Stampfli said, "who made the effort to get there and who stayed in locations that might not have been their first choice, because they are so devoted to the work that they do."

° Peggy Swisher is Convene's managing editor.