Girls’ Education in Burkina Faso

Fimba is from Burkina Faso. He is representing the Guttmacher Institute's Protecting the Next Generation Project at the conference.

I participated in a very interesting session entitled "Leadership in Girls Education: An Essential Component of HIV Prevention". The panelists were Josée Verner from Canada and Jeanette Kagami from Rwanda. This session spoke about something that affects my daily life at home and for which I struggle with my colleagues from my youth network to do as much as we can to address the situation of girls in Burkina Faso.

Meeting with My Minister of Health

Fimba is from Burkina Faso. He is representing the Guttmacher Institute's Protecting the Next Generation Project at the conference.

As I said in a previous post, this conference is an opportunity for me to remind the decision makers in my country to keep their promises. So, yesterday I had a meeting with my minister of health just after his meeting with the 65 delegates of Burkina Faso who are here at the conference. I should point out that during this meeting, I had the chance to meet simultaneously Mr. Alain Yoda, the Minister of Health, Dr. Joseph André Tiendrebogo, the Permanent Secretary of the National Council in the Fight Against AIDS in Burkina Faso and Mrs. Cécile Beloum, a deputy of the National Assembly. During my meeting with my minister, I asked him three key questions:

Hot Topics in Human Rights and HIV/AIDS

Fimba is from Burkina Faso. He is representing the Guttmacher Institute's Protecting the Next Generation Project at the conference.

Yesterday I sat in on a session where two of the five presenters really made me think. This "Hot Topics" session is important for me because I am the head of the human rights program for my organization, the African Youth Network for Health and Development in Burkina Faso (RAJS/BF). I really liked the presentation on advocacy to governments to support mother-to-child prevention programs and access to treatment for all, because this is a problem in my country.

AIDS 2006 Opening Ceremony

Fimba is a youth from Burkina Faso who is attending the Toronto AIDS conference, sponsored by the Guttmacher Institute. Translation by Leila Darabi from Guttmacher.

I just got back from the opening ceremony and the presentations were interesting, especially the presentation of Bill Gates and a young Indonesian woman living with HIV.

Dr. Helene Gayle directed our attention to governments and the promises that they made during the past two conferences. She recommended that the promises they made aren't put in drawers, but that they are made real and kept. She gave the example that most of the governments made promises to include civil society in development programs and she recognized that some of them have kept these promises, that this is a good thing and she urged governments to continue in this way.