Dr. Robert Carr (23 February 1963 – 10 May 2011) was a Trinidadian (and at the age of 40 became a dual national of Jamaica) scholar and human rights activist who dedicated his life to bringing public attention to issues related to stigma and discrimination against persons living with or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Carr wrote primarily on issues central to vulnerable communities in the Caribbean. The focus of Carr's publications was the intersectionality of poverty, homophobia, and human rights, and what he recognized as their role in producing and perpetuating systemic sexually based violence and inadequate global, regional, and Jamaican responses to HIV/AIDS. Toronto-based International Council of AIDS Service Organisations (ICASO) established the Robert Carr Award to honour his contributions to ending AIDS.

Early life and education Carr was born in St. James, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, on Carnival Saturday. His mother, June Carr, was a school teacher, and his father, Peter Carr, was a public health official with the UN World Health Organization.

At the age of seven, Robert and his older sister, Carolyn, moved to Jamaica in April 1970 because their father accepted a position with the United Nations Pan American Health Organization. This move brought Robert in closer contact with the Jamaican side of his family. He attended Meadowbrook Primary School and in 1974 went on to Meadowbrook High School where he stayed until 1980. Still a student at Meadowbrook High School, Carr pursued a part-time course in Poetry and Play Writing at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus, in Jamaica. There he not only attended classes, but wrote a play and poetry that was published in the university's official publication, Focus.

He moved to Maryland in 1981, just before his 18th birthday, to begin his post-secondary and university education. He attended Johns Hopkins University for his Bachelor's Degree in Arts and then the University of Maryland (College Park) for his Master's and Doctorate Degrees specializing in African-American Literature.

From 1988 to 1998 Carr lived in Washington DC. In 1994, he completed his Doctorate Degree in Philosophy (English).

In September 1998, his post-graduate education continued at the St. Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies in Trinidad, where he completed a one-year Diploma in Social Work, graduating with distinction. He then returned to Jamaica and enrolled in the Master's in Social Work program at the Mona Campus of The UWI, where in 2002 he again graduated with distinction.

Career In 1992 Carr became an Assistant Professor with the Department of English at George Mason University, where he taught until June 1997. He introduced new courses on black literature, and published numerous articles as a subaltern scholar on issues affecting developing countries.

His academic focus, however, soon shifted to social studies and social work. Before graduation from UWI in 2001, Carr became Coordinator of the Research and Development Working Group at Jamaica Network of Seropositives (JN+). Between 2002 and 2004, he was also a part-time lecturer with the UWI Mona's Faculty of Social Sciences and taught a Quantitative Research Method course. From 2006 to 2008, he served as the Coordinator of the Graduate Program's Unit at the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication.

Carr went on to serve as a member of the UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights and of the nongovernmental organization delegation to the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board, and "joined with other global advocates to found the Global Forum on MSM & HIV (MSMGF). He acted as a panelist for numerous Congressional Briefings in Washington, D.C., worked with the LGBT Caucus and assisted with high-level meetings at the United Nations, as well as countless other global policy arenas."Rep. Lee (Cal.). "Honoring Dr. Robert Carr," Congressional Record (1 June 2011) E1008-9. Towards the end of his career, he served as Policy and Advocacy Director of the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations.

Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JASL) Between late 2001 and mid 2002 Carr worked with the United Kingdom's International HIV/AIDS Alliance and the Jamaica Ministry of Health as a Program Planning Consultant to Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JASL), providing technical assistance to JASL in the areas of program development and human resource management. His consulting work paved the way for a permanent opportunity with JASL as the Director of Targeted Interventions, and by November 2002, "he became Executive Director of Jamaica AIDS Support for Life, a national NGO serving Jamaican society's most disenfranchised populations, including prisoners, the hearing impaired, people who use drugs, sex workers, transgender people, and gay and other men who have sex with men."

The Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC) By 2005, Carr "co-founded and was the first Executive Director of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC), one of the first Caribbean organizations to focus on issues related to the rights and needs of sexual minorities." He originally established the coalition "[i]n response to a lack of access to HIV and health services in Jamaica,""reaching out to colleagues in Jamaica, Trinidad, St. Lucia and beyond. In December 2004 a call went out to civil society actors attending a meeting of UNAIDS in Montego Bay, Jamaica. They [sic] call was for them to first get together in Kingston to talk about the concerns and the possibility of creating a network of some kind. The meeting included representatives from the Eastern Caribbean, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Curacao, - a cross-section of the French, English, Spanish and Dutch speaking Caribbean. The participants agreed to create a forum through which they could combine efforts. They understood that it would go a far way to help create the political space for the views and voices of the key populations to be heard."

The CVC operates as "a network of indigenous frontline service providers working on rights-based programming with marginalized groups across the Caribbean." Today, several aspects of the organization's work include helping to strengthen the Caribbean Sex Worker Coalition, collaborating with the Caribbean Forum for Liberation and Acceptance of Genders and Sexualities and supporting burgeoning transgender groups in different countries."

Global Forum on MSM & HIV (MSMGF) "In 2006, Robert joined with other global advocates to found the Global Forum on MSM & HIV (MSMGF) in recognition of the lack of attention to gay men and other MSM in the global HIV epidemic." At the MSMGF, Carr served as a mentor – "not just for the organization, but to other activists from emerging MSM regional networks throughout the world."

Activism