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.

Yesterday at the "Steady, Ready, GO!: Universal Access for Young People" session, speakers and young people turned research into action.

Steady Ready Go is the synthesis of research on youth prevention programming, analyzing studies to provide policy and programming recommendations. The research breaks programs into four categories for implementation. The first programs are GO for implementation. The second programs are promising and READY, but still need more research. The third programs are STEADY, but definitely need more research. The final category is NO GO, programs that don't work for youth.

Stephen Lewis, Special UN Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa, opened up the panel remarking on the lack of attention on young people, especially orphans and vulnerable children. As a youth activist, I felt his remarks fed into misconceptions about youth apathy, lacking an appreciation for the amazing work young people are doing everywhere. In posing this question to Stephen Lewis, he apologized and added, "We need to make it possible for the voices of young people to be heard". He then passionately discussed the role of young people's activism and indicated that it needs more support.

The microphone line was filled by youth activists ready to ask critical questions on the populations left out of the study, the impact of the study on youth advocacy, and next steps for further research and dissemination. The questions covered a wide variety of topics, including why prevention programs specifically for deaf and disabled youth were left out of the study. One youth leader asked if care, treatment, and support programs for youth would be the next book. And a young woman asked why youth adult partnerships were not included as part of the GO interventions.

Most of the questions were answered by the limitations of this study and current research. However, when one young woman asked about making the publication more youth-friendly, Joy Phumaphi, Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), committed to making a youth friendly version!

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.

Too often people talk the talk without walking the walk. This year, the Toronto YouthForce is aiming to change that by ensuring youth activists have tools to follow up with leaders after the International AIDS Conference. Through the Commitments Desk, key leaders, policy makers, and program managers are making concrete commitments for stronger youth participation and leadership in their governments, organizations, and programs. Toronto YouthForce members are then posting and distributing these commitments at the Youth Pavilion and via the internet so that young people can hold their leaders accountable to these promises after the International AIDS Conference.

The desk has become a huge success! Over 120 adultsBill & Melinda Gates Talk to Toronto Youth Force Members have made key commitments to young people. In addition, key leaders are utilizing the space to show their concrete commitments to young people in the press. Visitors (and I've met them all!) include Bill & Melinda Gates, David Miller, the Mayor of Toronto, and Mary Robinson, Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

But all commitments are important - big and small. One of my favorites (as it includes time bound deliverables) is from the Yugoslav Youth Association against AIDS. Momcilo Tantic said, "By November 2006, I will train more than 45 young people to be peer educators on HIV/AIDS".

Read the commitments and help us keep leaders accountable! For more information and to read some of the commitments, please visit the Commitments Desk.