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.
It's the first full day of the International AIDS Conference and, for the first time since I arrived on Saturday, everyone seems full of purpose. All around the conference center, people are consulting their massive conference programme to determine which sessions they should attend.
At 7:00 this morning, the Caucus for Evidence-Based Prevention convened its first meeting of members. Considering the Women's March was happening simultaneously, a suprising number of people attended. The buzz was around last night's opening session. We were all in awe of the fact that the majority of conference attendees left the Rogers Centre immediately after Bill and Melinda Gates spoke -- and before celebs like Richard Gere, Alicia Keyes and the Barenaked Ladies appeared.
Meheret Melles is a 20 year old Ethiopian-American student at the University of Maryland. She is on the International Youth Leadership Council at Advocates for Youth and a member of the Student Global AIDS Campaign.
After a day full of chasing dreams, youth gathered together for a night of theatre, live music, and art. As a volunteer, I had the pleasure to set up Chasing the Dream, an art exhibit of stunning photos, taken by youth in developing countries. These talented youth photographers were trained and released to venture around their community to capture the true essence of fear and excitement that their people candidly expressed. The rest of the night allowed Pre-Conference participants to mingle and enjoy the catered gourmet hors d'oeuvres.
RHReality Check has a series of bloggers from Toronto, looking at HIV prevention through improved access to sexual and reproductive health care. The prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS is integral to sexual and reproductive health - and yet often ignored in that context.
HIV/AIDS, first and foremost, is a sexually transmitted disease. All too often, however, the response ignores the range of life's issues that relate to human sexuality - and neglects to address this disease for what it primarily is - a sexually transmitted disease.
The pandemic is growing fastest among women and young people, fueled by those who believe that knowing less, rather than more, is a road to informed decision making.
Isn't it amazing when different social movements work together in peace and justice? This past week, 2,000 hotel employees in Toronto voted to authorize a strike, but after considering the havoc this would wreak on the HIV/AIDS conference (you know, the one that we keep gabbing about) they instead deferred the strike and declared their solidarity with people living with HIV/AIDS.
Meheret Melles is a 20 year old Ethiopian-American student at the University of Maryland. She is on the International Youth Leadership Council at Advocates for Youth and a member of the Student Global AIDS Campaign.
When 250 youth from around the world meet to continue the fight against HIV/AIDS, how can you not be excited?
The first day of the Toronto YouthForce Pre-Conference couldn't have started with a more invigorating opening session. Grandma Heather Sole, an elder, and Brenda McIntyre, a Medicine Song Woman, blessed us with their presence in a self-healing ceremony. From then on, the aura of the Pre-Conference was filled with the positive energy and strong desire of youth to utilize their minds in order to strategically strengthen their presence at the Main Conference. The sessions covered a multitude of issues, from Trade Justice to Media & Communications. I even overheard some youth participants bewildered because they simply wanted to attend all the sessions!
Focus on the Family sent out over 90,000 brochures to Missouri residents, with quotes from women's organizations to strengthen opposition to the stem cell initiative. When the Center for American Progress contacted several of the women's organizations, they said their quotes had been taken out of context in order to misrepresent their views. In fact, these women's organizations are supportive of stem cell research. They do NOT think it is "exploiting women in the name of science" as the brochure says. Looks like Focus on the Family was exploiting women's health advocates!
Conservative ideologues share one important characteristic internationally, they believe in stigmatizing people with AIDS. Like his collegue to the south, President George Bush who sent his wife to UNGASS to put a kinder, gentler face on the wasted resources and missed opportunities of his HIV/AIDS policies, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is snubbing 25,000 public health professionals and AIDS prevention advocates who are gathering in Toronto for the International AIDS Conference.
One Canadian who works in the KwaZulu/Natal region of South Africa tells of her life and work there, making the case for the PM to attend. The contrast in her powerful story, and Harper's failure to make an appearance when the world has come to his country to do this important work, is stark.
Girl Guides in Kenya are earning merit badges for promoting abstinence programs to their female compatriots as part of a U.S.-funded strategy for AIDS prevention, reporters were told at a news conference yesterday. "We enhance abstinence among the youth in schools and also in the community," 18-year-old Girl Guide Ranger Millicent Achieng explained from Nairobi during a video conference at the U.S. consulate in Toronto. The guides program has given out abstinence-promotion badges to 2,000 girls who learned they should abstain from sex until marriage and be faithful to their husbands after. The program will receive $200,000 (U.S.) this year from U.S. President George W. Bush's five-year, $15 billion President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR."
Beth Pellettieri is the Coordinator of the International Youth Leadership Council at Advocates for Youth and the co-chair of the Toronto YouthForce Advocacy Task Force.
I arrived in Toronto yesterday morning, with AIDS 2006 banners flying high downtown and 25,000 registered participants gradually beginning to descend on the city. Although the XVI Toronto International AIDS Conference begins Sunday, organizers and activists are already in Toronto, turning months and even years of planning into action.
