 Lawton served on the board of the Positive Women's Network and Pacific AIDS Resource Centre (PARC) and worked one on one with HIV-positive kids in home settings and helped to organize retreats for HIV-positive women and children.Lawton met Lloyd Axworthy, former Director of the University of British Columbia's Liu Institute for Global Issues and former Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, in 2004.He encouraged her to cover the forcible conscription of children in Uganda's civil war.