Mark's blog

When Science and Passions Collide: Another Perspective

2006-08-17T10:06:43-04:00

Mark Hiew is a reporter for the Toronto YouthForce. He can be reached at mark.hiew@gmail.com

It seemed like business as usual at the main pressroom on Day 3 of the International AIDS Conference in Toronto. Helene Gayle, President of the International AIDS Society, had just introduced Gregg Goncalves, of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), when the situation rapidly changed. Gregg ceded his spot to two positive black South African women, Sipho Mthathi and another TAC representative-an unusual act in such settings. As Sipho began to speak, a dozen members of the TAC stood up together, chanting slogans and holding signs reading "Gates is not the voice of (People with AIDS)!" and "Media: Activist not 'Hollywood' Conference."

I had been waiting for this moment. Through personal sources, I had embedded myself with a Northern activist organization, Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC), which provided additional support to TAC during the action. Moving from a protest outside the convention center against U.S. Free Trade Agreements, they had regrouped inside the building and coordinated with their South African colleagues via cell phone, awaiting permission to join the demonstration. A few minutes later, a member of TAC arrived to give them the green light.

"They're now accepting white people," Matt Kavanagh, Harvard graduate and executive director of the organization, informed his colleagues, his tone mixing both subtle humor and a sort of knowing liberal consciousness. Symbolic and literal representation of communities they view as marginalized or under-represented is an ever-present, almost obsessive concern for the AIDS activist community. TAC, which is largely comprised of HIV-positive black South Africans, but whose membership includes other ethnic groups, had previously expressed a desire to keep the demonstration as 'black' as possible. Over 60 percent of all people living with HIV are in Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Africa has more than any other individual nation: 5.5 million, of whom the vast majority of those diagnosed are black.

Upon receiving the green light, the SGAC group discretely slid into the media center, where they joined TAC members in one of the unused interview rooms for a quick briefing on their message and action plan. Then, they walked into the press conference with signs concealed, before taking over and reframing the entire event in efficient, if dramatic fashion.

The whole process took about 15 minutes.

It was not the first time they had co-opted an event in such fashion. Rather, it has become a practically expected part of any large-scale AIDS event for activists to take main stage through direct action tactics. Since the inception of organizations such as Act UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) in New York and Paris, whose "Silence Equals Death" slogan in the 1980s remains one of the most successful advocacy campaigns in recent history, through to today's transnational advocacy movements, AIDS activists have played a historic, formative role in shaping the AIDS debate, battling for media representation and enlarging the circle of inclusion.

This conference is a case study of this consistent evolution. Originally starting as an academic and research-centered conference for the scientific and medical communities, it has since grown to become an extraordinarily broad gathering of people involved in HIV from every country and sector of society, including community organizers, peer educators, sex workers, music celebrities, and, of course, activists. It now even boasts its own global village, a colorful, lively hub of activity, where music and street theatre takes place besides sex workshops and fashion shows.

AIDS is commonly described as the Petri dish of social issues. It serves to magnify and bring to light a broad spectrum of contemporary social ills, including race, class, sexuality, increasing corporate power, democracy, trade liberalization, and U.S. hegemony. In similar fashion, the AIDS activist movement, with its own complex dynamics and varied worldviews, effectively captures the state and direction of other global social movements, serving indirectly as its own Petri dish.

Helen Gayle, whose glances of consternation towards TAC delegates before the 'take-over' suggested that this was not her first event at which activists had taken control, attempted to keep the conference as close to the original agenda as possible. However, following the conference's unplanned transformation, she struggled to keep discussion on topic, and the majority of questions from the media were addressed to, or at least addressed by Ms. Mthathi, whose articulacy and well-informed response remained constant.

The general theme of Ms. Mthathi and her organization was the continued marginalization and lack of participation of those most affected by the virus: poorer people of color from developing countries. However, she touched on a variety of other issues, including what she viewed as her own government's misinformation campaigns, difficulty in procuring second line treatment, and pharmaceutical lobby interests in the United States' HIV/AIDS foreign policy.

Several times during the questioning process, one of the TAC's leaders, who is a white man, condemned the moderator and several journalists for addressing their questions to Dr. Fauci, an American doctor.

"This is exactly the problem we're talking about," he shouted angrily. "Why don't you ask Sipho to answer the question? Are only people who come from [English-speaking countries] allowed to answer?"

Meanwhile, media ravenously snapped up footage and photographs of the standing protesters, who continued to chant and cheer following particularly prescient points. More media gathered outside the pressroom, shooting their pictures with arms outstretched upwards, unable to squeeze into the now crowded entrance.

I noticed Frika Chiu, the young positive Indonesian woman who had spoken so eloquently at the Opening Ceremony, holding a sign towards the back which read "Face Reality About HIV/AIDS - People Are Dying," another attack on the recent 'celebrity circus' nature of this year's conference. This is, some might argue, an inevitable consequence of the more inclusive, populist direction that activists such as Frika herself have championed for the IAC. With increased media exposure comes increased commercial interest, in addition to a watering down, or perhaps more accurately, a "prettying up" of the event for lay audiences.

But then swiveling the video camera around the room, I couldn't help but realize that this was a perfect "Petri dish" moment. Elevated at the front were Helen Gayle, an African-American woman with seasoned roots in the establishment, and Dr. Fauci, from the upper crust of medical circles and representative of the white, educated, male elite in the North. Then, to his left, Ms. Mthathi and her colleague, two young 'community-level' women, aggressively representing the sentiments of the majority of people infected or affected by the virus. Finally, next to them, a Ugandan female minister, representing the oft-criticized African elite.

Before them in the audience, lay more fragmented segments of international society. In one pocket stood the TAC protesters: angry, emotive, and black. Seated or kneeling around them, the media: mostly white, yet certainly more ethnically diverse, many of whom are busy in their own career-driven lives--capturing footage on expensive cameras, emailing it back to their bureaus, and then flying off to cover another story next week. At the back of the room, protesters from outside South Africa: some of them Northern, others from the South, all very vigorous in righteously supporting TAC, whom they often refer to as their "brothers and sisters," offered a glimpse into their model of global citizenship and social equity.

In this heavily discussed globalizing world are mixed notions of choice, freedom and rights. As an activist example: the political and business leaders of the world have the choice to take decisive action in overcoming the epidemic; millions of people living with HIV without access to generic drugs do not have the choice to save their own lives. For them, many governments and pharmaceutical executives are denying the poor and disempowering the human right to life.

An opposing example: Pharmaceutical companies should have the freedom to patent and protect their intellectual property in a competitive global economy; the U.S. government has the freedom to encourage free trade agreements with poorer countries. For such individuals, activists do not understand the realities of macroeconomics or international trade, and their shouting and theatre provide more distraction than positive outcome.

Depending on where one stands, or from a merely academic perspective, all of these arguments are relative, epistemological constructions of the same titanic debate and a global, rapidly growing, middle-class population suggests that this is sure to continue.

What does not seem to be mixed is the notion of human worth. If human life is valuable, and indeed, the consensus in this AIDS debate concedes that it is, and if saving lives and overcoming the "black plague"-as one Ugandan youth described the virus--should come before profit or ideology or elements of faith, then why is it that 25 years into the epidemic, we're not even at the point of curbing it, let alone close to eradicating it?

Depending on whom you talk to at this conference, the answer is sure to be different. And the answer will continue to change as new treatments are rolled out and with new international trade agreements in flux. From what I've heard, it seems like we're finally moving in the right direction. Positive statistical evidence from a recent UNAIDS report also suggests faint glimmers of improvement.

No matter the state of our efforts, however, at least one thing is assured: there will be angry, impassioned activists in whichever direction the AIDS response travels; demanding more minority participation, chastising anything short of universal access to drugs, steadfast in their belief that saving human life should come before all else. As the TAC members left the press conference today to go "tear down" the South African government's booth, they sang together: it was a beautiful, mournful song which echoed out of the media center and into the main halls of the convention center.

The world's response to AIDS is much better because of people such as Sipho Mthathi. Activists are just as necessary now as they were during the beginnings of the epidemic, so many years ago. And, let us hope, not too many years ahead. Enough life has been shed for my generation; I dare not think what AIDS may bode for that of my children.

From Inclusion to Leadership

2006-06-05T08:21:51-04:00

I am on my way back to Washington, rolling away from the rollicking clatter of New York City and the seat of international administration at which over the past week, dozens of brilliant young activists have made their presence felt as profoundly as possible. As didactic and occasionally enthralling as the meeting was, I can’t seem to shake the lingering sense of disappointment at the ultimately mediocre strength of the session’s results. The final political declaration to come out of the 2006 UNGASS review was a mixed bag; encouragingly, it included the strongest youth language ever seen in such a document, as well as a demand for national targets (if not specific quantitative nor global ones) and some mention of putting life before intellectual property rights through access to generic drugs.

Paragraph 26 reads: “(Therefore, we) commit to address the rising rates of HIV infection among young people to ensure an HIV-free future generation through the implementation of comprehensive, evidence-based prevention strategies, responsible sexual behaviours, including the use of condoms, evidence-and skills-based, youth specific HIV education, mass media interventions, and the provision of youth friendly health services.”

Though it fails to mention comprehensive sexuality education, which would have undoubtedly been preferable to “youth specific HIV education,” this paragraph at least allows civil society and non-state actors to push national governments as close to full accountability as possible.

On a less positive note, the declaration fails to make explicit mention of specific at-risk communities, including Men who have Sex with Men (MSM), preferring to use the politically ambiguous term “vulnerable groups.” It also makes mention of “cultural values” in a warping of their original use, in order to allow particular regimes to continue to ignore and repress groups based on ideology, rather than public health or human rights. The declaration does not commit states to reaching the necessary goal of $23 billion USD by 2010, merely calling for signed states to “ensure that new and additional resources are made available.” Finally, the document does not make mention of universal access, a visionary step pushed by the UN since 2001 which is deserving of full political support.

Despite these setbacks, and make no mistake, these are definite setbacks whose exclusion will certainly hinder a truly effective response to global AIDS, I have been filled with a sense of optimism that Harriet, the middle-aged fabric designer I met at a diner across from the UN, considers simply youthful naiveté.

It is an optimism that I derived in-part after speaking to a young HIV-positive homosexual man from the South Bronx who got arrested inside the US Mission through an act of courageous civil disobedience, when he told me: “Now I know…I have the right to do this, and I can do this.”

It is an optimism borne from observing and participating in a number of spectacularly intense and provocative meetings of civil society: where immensely influential veteran activists—such as Eric Sawyer of Act Up and Asia Russell of Health GAP—teamed with a range of professionals from throughout the global south, to analyze, critique, and demand more from the bureaucratic process of disappointing compromise that the UN is renowned for, whilst equipped with nothing more than the weapons of tenaciousness, outrage, and moral agency.

An optimism that witnessed fellow youth advocates take media center stage with grace and aplomb, be they Deidre of Memphis, Tennessee on CNN International, or Nino Susanto of Jogyakarta, Indonesia on BBC World, entering the stage of public affairs with a vigor and intelligence that our generation may possess in abundance, but which the world continually fails to fully utilize.

HIV/AIDS is a treacherous, venomous disease, a devastatingly dark pestilence whose life-stealing enormity far outweighs that of any other phenomenon, natural or man-made, in human history. There are numerous countries, some within Sub-Saharan Africa, in which it has already reconfigured and ravaged the natural cycle of our species—robbing societies of an entire generation of young leaders and breadwinners. If HIV is to destroy us in such a way, reversing many centuries of progress in global prosperity, longevity of life, and the struggle for social justice: it will not be because of the superior biological nor mutational ability of the disease itself. It is well-known that we have effective antiretroviral therapy which allows for the prolonged, healthy life of people living with HIV/AIDS, and that such drugs can be produced for less than a dollar a day. In similar fashion, progress in the development of preventive microbicides, which are critical to the empowerment of women and girls, more potent treatments, and ultimately, a permanent cure, is well within the reach of modern medicine as well as society’s final realization of health as a human right.

No, humankind shall not be defeated by the HIV virus, but only by humankind ourselves. If we allow the unfettered greed of the pharmaceutical industry, which spends less on research than it does on advertising, whilst profiting in far greater excess than both combined; or the hateful ideology of discrimination due to sexual orientation, race, or class to persist in modern society; or the myopic trappings of political relations, mainstream apathy, and inexcusable inaction to come between humankind and the conquest of its greatest challenge to date, than it shall be a hellish self-fulfilling descent upon which humanity is tumbling.

I firmly believe that this shall not be the case.

I believe that my generation, in partnership with and in the spirit of past social movements that have come before us, shall not allow a mere lack of political will to defeat us. Over the past week, I have been blessed to partake in a bounty of inspiration and action, as youth summit members rallied their national delegations, excelled on official panels, and led the shouts of protest from within the very heart of the United Nations, the General Assembly Hall. This group of individuals: women and men; lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, still deciding, and straight; Southern and Northern, short and tall; empowered and impatient, will wait no longer for their leaders to take decisive action to prevent new infections and provide access to treatment immediately.

We are Kuntal Krishna of India, who moved Mrs. Annan to visible effect when sharing the story of a 15-year-old HIV victim from his home, whom asked him to the Secretary-General’s wife with a painting of her deceased relatives. We are Keesha Effs of Jamaica, whose blistering presentation on the feminization of HIV shook UN delegates into congratulatory reverie. And we are Naina Dhingra of the United States, whose unyielding strength of character and mastery of the political process provides young people with a true leader at the highest levels of administration. As Incia Khan, a Pakistani-Canadian coordinator for the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS so eloquently stated: “We must be the generation of change.”

Jan Eliasson, President of the UN General Assembly, issued the following call to all signatory states during the closing remarks of this week’s meeting: “Take this Declaration, and take the new spirit and understanding of these three days, back to your countries, and implement it.”

It is up to us to make sure that they do just that.

Youth Leaders Protest in General Assembly

2006-06-02T13:15:00-04:00

Throughout the past three days, youth members of civil society have traveled a rollercoaster of emotional and political turbulence, as moments of exasperation and elation, gratitude and outrage flowed throughout continued civil society meetings. Following on the high hopes that many carried in from the youth summit, the present (and likely final) version of the declaration, though it includes positive language on youth—thanks in large part to the demands and pressure of youth advocacy—remains a disappointingly watered down document. Youth and civil society at large have expressed a variety of grievances towards the meeting, ranging from the impotency of institutional process through to the lack of access for civil society to actual negotiations. Influential member states, such as the United States, the Organization of Islamic Conference, and the African block (excluding Nigeria) were lambasted for their continued refusal to include specific disproportionately affected groups such as men who have sex with men, sex workers, and intravenous drug users. Other blocks, such as the Rio group of Latin American and Caribbean states, and progressive-minded states such as Canada and Norway were applauded for putting forward critical language.

In my dealings with the Australian mission, I was pleased to find that my government has been focused on putting concrete targets and monitoring and evaluation into the declaration. The climate of crisis reached a head at a civil society meeting last night, shortly before a large official concert event: “An Evening of Remembrance and Hope” was to take place. Infuriated and frustrated at what was seen as zero progress, or in some eyes, a step backwards by the declaration drafts coming out of negotiations, civil society decided that a symbolic action of dissent was required.

After debating a variety of possible actions, it was decided that at a specific moment, all of civil society would stand collectively and declare their specific demands for language to be included in the declaration. The event itself—held in the General Assembly--was a gala, celebratory occasion during which young African children pulled on heartstrings, Richard Gere looked pretty, and most importantly, Kofi Annan, the UN moral authority, called for inclusion of specific at-risk groups from the official delegations standing before him.

One of the speakers, a Ugandan activist who civil society had earlier corresponded with, attached “the watered-down declaration” whilst calling for “specific set targets,” to which governments would be held accountable. As the applause began to die down, approximately 60 civil society members representing the needs and sentiments of the professionals working on the ground across the globe as well as the people living with and dying from the epidemic, stepped out of their seats to shout in unison: “The Declaration must include: Treatment, Targets, Women and Girls, Harm Reduction, Vulnerable Groups, Now!” Led by two youth advocates, a tall redheaded woman and an Asian man, they began to march through the aisles in collective chorus, much to the surprise of the official delegates who filled the cavernous hall.

As security guards surrounded and led them out of the hall, the diverse group shouted the refrain: “Silence equals Death!,” repeating the particular phrase used by Kofi Annan earlier in the event. Outside in the hall, after a raucous version of the “Amandla” chant, led by Sipho from the Treatment Action Campaign, security guards were bullish and irritable. They demanded UN passes and attempted to herd civil society out of the building. In a flurry of quick thinking and calm responsiveness, members of the group called UNAIDS colleagues as others gathered the group in a tight huddle, interlocking arms to prevent security from wresting the group into segments. As guards began to don white gloves, which from my own experience, are a protocol for forced removal, a UN official raced out of the Hall and demanded that civil society be released immediately, along with their passes. Cheers of jubilation rang out, from the songbird cries of South African women to the pat-on-the-back, normally-reserved grins of the UK and EU representatives. This afternoon, as the political declaration is finalized, with some admittedly positive developments but largely as a weakened, disappointing document which will not support efforts to push accountability upon government responses to the epidemic, civil society plans on issuing a press release and its own declaration.)

Passion Pushes Power to Act at UN AIDS Meeting

2006-06-01T11:28:30-04:00

After I attended a youth caucus meeting where language for a joint youth message was finalized, there was a demonstrations outside of the UN, where AIDS activists from around the world came together in concert as impassioned chants and speeches rallied out towards the towering UN building.

“BUSH is BANANAS!” shouted one chant-leader, mimicking a recent pop song, and a member of Act-Up, one of the most influential and famous grassroots political organizations in recent history.

“B-A-N-A-N-A-S!” screamed back thousands of supporters. “’CAUSE HE DON’T GIVE US MONEY FOR THE… A-I-D-S-H-I-V!

Rosie Perez, a bombshell actress and native New Yorker of “White Men Can’t Jump” fame, MC’d the event, and brought raucous cheers of joy when she donned the “HIV Positive” shirt made famous by Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a South African grassroots movement which successfully pressured its government to provide universal access to treatment. South Africa has the world’s largest number of people living with HIV. The shirt has become symbolic of fighting the pervasive stigma and discrimination which continues to cripple efforts to push back the epidemic throughout large swathes of the world, including the United States.

Sipho Mthathi of TAC, spoke as a representative of Africa in a series of keynotes representing each region of the world. “Long live the spirit of the 65 million people who have died since the beginning of the epidemic, long live!” She also led the crowd in the Zulu chant: “Amandla,” which was adopted by the grassroots AIDS movement from its original use in the anti-apartheid struggle. I found this especially heart-wrenching because as an AIDS activist with the Student Global AIDS Campaign at the University of Maryland, I used to lead our group with the chant at the end of meetings and events. As the case lies, however, I don’t think that my version could possibly carry the power and soulfulness that Sipho evokes.

Of all the AIDS rallies I’ve attended over the years, this was perhaps the most poignant. The crowd, a positively diverse collection in terms of sexuality, race, gender, profession, socio-economic status, age, HIV-status and otherwise, held a unity and shared sense of urgency that I envisioned crossing First Avenue, snaking through the corridors of the UN conference rooms, and into the hearts and minds of the collection of bureaucrats inside.

Why does it feel like those that are actually on the ground, fighting to save their generation and peers’ lives, are always the ones on the outside, shouting until hoarse down the hollow ears of political power?

Because that’s what’s been happening for the past 25 years, and that’s what will continue to keep happening for the next 25 years, until humanity strikes down this vicious epidemic, or allows the epidemic to strike us down, through our own myopic wrangling, our ideological preposterousness, and our inability to represent those in need.

Message to World: IT’S TIME TO

Former Bush AIDS Czar Speaks Out Against Administration

2006-06-01T10:36:51-04:00

Wednesday morning, Advocates for Youth held a press conference that was attended by youth from a collection of nations. Former Bush administration AIDS czar Scott Evertz had spoken out against the administration he used to represent. I was surprised but thoroughly impressed to find that Mr. Evertz, the first openly gay official to be chosen for the current administration, pulled no punches in speaking out against the specifics of the administration's widely lauded PEPFAR plan. He referred to the profound lack of reality employed in conservative policymakers' treatment of LGBT youth: "If you teach them abstinence only until marriage, and it is illegal for them to marry: do you expect them to remain abstinent their entire lives?" he asked.

Mr. Evertz, while coyly remarking at how Advocates as well as other NGOs used to be the "thorn in his side," said he is now able to join them in lambasting current PEPFAR policy: "People keep asking me if US AIDS Policy has been hijacked by the far right. I'm not sure that it's been entirely hijacked, but let's just say they're on the plane," he remarked.
Speaking from the ground as well as from her heart, Beatrice Were, an HIV positive woman from Uganda, offered a shocking personal example of the shortcomings of PEPFAR policy. Practicing the Abstinence-only-until-Marriage method, she abstained from sex until marrying her husband. However, she still became infected with HIV, through her husband. This instance, in which faithful women have their lives turned upside down by promiscuous partners, is not particular to
Uganda, not the continent of Africa. Beatrice's case highlighted for me the vast gender inequities that exist throughout many of the region's most heavily affected by HIV, and the need for both gender mainstreaming programs which change behavior towards women, but the need to empower them to protect themselves, whether it be microbicides, female condoms, or an extra-strong can of pepper spray. The third panelist, Dr. John Santelli, is a long-time Center for Disease Control official who left the department after becoming increasingly disillusioned with the direction in which scientific agencies are moving. I had the chance to chat with him before the release, and was found Dr. Santelli to be a sensible, intelligent man in possession of a strong moral agency. He, along with many other scientists, are leaving federal agencies to remain in good conscience
against the tide of ideology invading previously science-oriented organizations. In his case, providing misinformation through Abstinence-Only education goes against his medical training, and it comes without evidence.

"Governments should not be providing misinformation," he reproached. "Physicians should provide patients with accurate diagnoses, accepting this as intrinsic to taking care of patients." Instead of telling patients "what they must do, tell them the risks and advantages," he explained.

"The same is true of government and health education. It's verytroubling for a government to be supporting public misinformation, which is occurring with Abstinence-only education."

Youth Leaders Educating Ambassadors

2006-06-01T10:16:39-04:00

On Tuesday, members of the youth coalition began reaching out to their national delegations, advocating on behalf of their peers using the training they acquired in a manner that was both articulate and authoritative.

I was able to sit in on a meeting between Ambassador Sealy with Carla and Dion, two Tobagonian youth activists, at the Trinidad and Tobago Permanent Mission to the UN. I was amazed at both the amount of time provided by the ambassador for both of them to explain the situation on the ground, to advocate a comprehensive ABCDEF policy for education and the reduction of stigma, and then the ambassador's own pledge to get the two in touch with their UNGASS delegation.

While discussing the state of adolescent sexuality, the ambassador remarked at his surprise upon learning of the growing rates of HIV infection and teen pregnancy:
"Sex was for adults during my generation," he said.
"Just look at the number of pregnant girls leaving high school!" Dion replied, calling for action that was less driven by Tobagonian Christian belief systems, and more by pragmatic and proven comprehensive education policies which, while stating the importance and full benefits of abstinence, also provided thorough information through the message: Abstain, Be Faithful, use Condoms, Do get tested, Educate yourself, and Free yourself from drugs and alcohol.

Carla, a youthful but experienced health practitioner in Tobago, spoke of the fear of stigma on the small island. "People don't think that there's confidentiality, so they don't get tested out of shame," she said. Ambassador Sealy, for whom it appeared much of this information was new, was a diligent, active participant in the conversation, far more so than the legislative aides I have encountered during lobbying trips to Capitol Hill. If only US representatives were half as responsive to the needs of their young constituents. If the members of the Trinidad & Tobago delegation are similarly constructive in Dion and Carla's future discussions with them, youth may hope to see a turn-around in the Carribbean, with evidence-based education replacing the Abstinence-only preaching which has proven largely ineffective since its inception.

Youth Summit: Day 2

2006-05-30T21:56:43-04:00

As I write, Victor from Sweden and Edford from Zambia are presenting on message building. The group, after yesterday's intensive crush of trainings and workshops, have become much more comfortable and light-hearted. Many are adorned in beige hats with "WYP?" (What's Your Position) on the front, from a youth awareness campaign which provides condoms to youth in nightclubs in Trinidad & Tobago.

I've been sitting down with folks during breaks to talk about some of their programs on the ground. Two major themes have really struck out to me:

Firstly, the passion, inspiration and intelligence of my generation is truly phenomenal. Looking around the room this morning, I am periodically moved to wonderment by the physical and symbolic beauty I find within the diversity of people in this room. Our skin colors, hairstyles and clothing possess a brilliant range of color and culture, and yet our voice rings out with sonorous clarity. United through our youth and vibrancy, our collective commitment to defeating this epidemic and demanding our voice is heard at this UN meeting makes us a formidable force.

Not nearly as beautiful as the variety of ethnic groups on display is the common reports back from respective home turfs. In brief discussions, I've been continually met with feelings of frustration, anger and exasperation at the invasion of ideology, discrimination and politics into what we see as an issue of public health. Mayindo, a peer educator and youth advocate from Nigeria, best encapsulated the general feeling when describing his emotions at receiving PEPFAR funding for peer education programs, which contains the notable requirement that only "Abstinence-Only" education be used:

PEPFAR funding "puts us in a dire corner. Sometimes I think it is even better to not receive the funds. PEPFAR has imposed its own programs on other countries, thereby undermining Nigeria's own national strategy," which includes full comprehensive sexuality education.

Facing such obstacles has never been a new challenge for youth activists, which returns me to my main point: the intelligence and maturity of young people. In response to this unprecedented global adversity, we bring passion, energy, and innovation. Our imaginative quality — a universal hallmark of young people, but one often decried as being unrealistic or overly ambitious — is perhaps our greatest strength.

I was thoroughly impressed by the hyper-articulate Dikitso, who discussed adding the "D" to ABC—Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms--in an innovative peer education campaign used in Botswana. Masturbation, which appears to have been a taboo subject since time immemorial, is a rarely discussed but pragmatic method of preventing HIV transmission. Through his campaign, Dikitso and other educators organized focus group discussions around the subject of masturbation, and launched a campaign which added "D" for "Do it Yourself," to the existing ABC methodology. Using a discussion-generating road sign messaging campaign, Botswanan peer educators like Dikitso are providing knowledge in place of previous fear-based interventions.

In Wisconsin, Whitney from "Sex Outloud" organized an awareness campaign which brought out 400 community members to raise awareness concerning the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. In Indonesia, Nino organized a queer film festival in Jogyakarta which drew over 1000 audience members, despite facing death threats demanding the event be called off. Whilst handing out hats, Carla from Trinidad & Tobago shared their "WYP?" campaign with us, in which peer educators swept through night clubs handing out condoms, t-shirts and hats with the "What's Your Position?" message: Even when enjoying yourself, protect yourself.

It was wonderful to go around the room, hearing so much creativity and thoughtfulness from fellow youth coming up with so many solutions, hand-fitted to a broad array of cultural contexts. With such intelligent, committed young activists working around the globe to curb this preventable virus, I am filled with confidence that we can win this war and really turn the tables on HIV/AIDS.

What we really need is for unproven ideological "solutions" to be removed from international AIDS policy as much as possible. And that's what the next three days is about. After a day of intensive lobbying and messaging training, each of us are ready to meet with our national delegations to demand youth involvement and comprehensive sexuality education for our peers.

Reporting Live from UN: Youth Summit Connecting Leaders

2006-05-30T09:23:03-04:00

This is incredible. In this room are leading youth HIV activists from 20 or so countries in both the Global North and South as well as a wide variety of organizations. Tsutomo, a peer educator from Japan, Keesha, a national organizer from Jamaica, Amr, Middle East Coordinator for the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS from Egypt…collectively we represent every region of the world and every sector of HIV mobilization. I’ll be blogging in particular with Tabris, a soft-spoken Peruvian youth educator, and Tsholofelo, a young Botswanan activist whose bright skirts and tanktops are bringing some much-needed color to this gathering of suits. Our collective knowledge and social capital is massive, the energy is palpable, and the curiousity levels are high. It’s going to be hard to remain on-task with UNGASS preparation with 60 young, attractive adults in one room.

The goals that we have set are expansive and ambitious. We’re simultaneously trying to build a lasting network, increase skill sets, brainstorm ideas, create a common youth agenda to present to the UNGASS delegation, acquire friendships, discover best practices, learn why we’re all here working on this particular issue, and—in between all of that—become the global voice for young people on AIDS.

So far, we’ve had a wide array of workshops and presentations, from representatives from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the International Women’s Health Coalition. Most important of all, Peter Piot, the Executive Director of UNAIDS, stopped by in the morning for a half-hour blitz of questions. After describing a lot of the constraints and limitations understandably faced by UN bureaucracies, he asked us to provide him with a handful of specific points for him to take away from the meeting.

It’s definitely a huge opportunity: perhaps the first of its kind, as well as a tremendous challenge. For the first time in this historic fight, youth have the direct ear of the executive director of the organization designed to lead the world’s response to HIV, inarguably one of the most important people working in the field today. It’s going to be tough for 60 youth, coming from widely varying backgrounds, to find consensus on just a handful of the most critical issues we want Doctor Piot to really bring home to UNAIDS. I am sure that we’ll make our voices heard loudly and clearly; whether or not the official delegations will be listening or not remains to be seen. It’s our task to make sure that they do. So many lives and so many voices are standing behind us, if not literally, then most certainly in spirit.

Reporting Live from UN: The Lines Are Drawn

2006-05-30T07:56:33-04:00

I’m in day one of a Youth Summit at the UN Population Fund, and I’m pumped to meet the international youth delegation that’s been assembled. I’m curious as to how the summit planners are going to mobilize and equip such a disparate group for all the media and scheduling madness of any large international conference. More critically, though, I’m apprehensive and excited at discovering what exactly we’re facing in putting youth at the forefront of the UNGASS 06 agenda. It seems highly likely that the UNGASS review committee will face difficult political squabbling throughout the process with a US delegation that appears selected largely on political grounds, rather than on healthcare experience.

Young people throughout the world are in desperate need of accurate, comprehensive information regarding their sexual and reproductive health. I’ve heard enough stories concerning youth HIV infection and teen pregnancy in Baltimore and New York to gain a glimpse into how stifling, burdensome, and even life-taking the consequences of such events can be. It’s difficult, but so very necessary to empathize and imagine the severity of conditions my fellow generation of youth in HIV-ravaged places like Botswana, Peru, or Jamaica. Simply getting by is difficult enough for many living in such reaches of the globe; preventing the added burden of HIV or other sexual and reproductive health problems should be a no-brainer. It’s something that someone outside of the health world might think our modern world would have already taken care of, many years ago.

But instead, we face a giant roadblock in the way of young people’s access to complete information. The current Bush administration, with its Abstinence-Only-for-Youth education, continues to put ideology before evidence-based public health. As a youth organizer during my college years, I became so used to spouting numbers that after a while, I became desensitized to the reality behind the statistics. One which never lost its potency with me, however, was that teens and young adults account for half of all new infections. In particular, we’re talking about men and women between the ages of 15 and 24…now I’m 21 and like many of my peers, I rarely, if ever consider the thought of dying.

Oh sure, I know it’ll happen. Eventually. But when I think of Mark’s death—and generally speaking, I don’t—I get visions of grey hair, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, bathroom mirrors filled with government-subsidized over-priced drugs. The notion that thousands of young people each day are becoming infected with this virus--and are thus forced to deal with and, in many circumstances, prepare for their own deaths--is truly astounding.

Call me an idealist, but it should not, and does not, have to be this way. I believe that humanity is capable of much more than what our track record has shown so far in this battle with the AIDS pandemic, which is not only the greatest issue of my generation, but also the most important fight in human history. I hope to give you an inside glimpse into what youth are doing throughout this high level meeting, as well as cast a critical eye over as many of the formal meetings as possible.

Youth Blogger: Mark fom Australia

2006-05-29T10:35:53-04:00

It’s now only one day until I travel to New York City for the UNGASS meeting and its starting to show. I’m becoming increasingly apprehensive and nervous; the potential for real commitment and action, as well as for more continued bureaucratic wrangling, is currently hanging tenuously in the balance. During my day job, I work for a development agency which has a lovely modern office with lots of lovely, educated, passionate mostly-Western professionals who seem to be forever coming back from Sudan or flying out to Haiti. Occasionally, employees who are young mothers bring cute, well-tended babies in for a visit. At the kitchenette, we discuss RFAs (Requests for Assistance) alongside sailing trips and rec-league softball. It is forever surreal to go from one’s daily routine: rattling away at interminable email queues, working out how to add streaming video to a presentation, yawning in traffic surrounded by single-passenger SUVs, to the people and communities we’re actually endeavoring to assist. Geographic distance at this point is no longer the great mental chasm of yesteryear—budget airfare has taken care of much of that—so much as the economic chasm, whose growing distance continues to prove difficult to bridge. I scan through photographs for a project: an Internally Displaced woman from South Sudan, an Indonesian builder who lost family and possessions to natural disaster, smiling children from every continent. Even with all of my college anthropology and cross-cultural education and the Peace Corps stories of colleagues, I still ask myself: “What could I possibly have in common with this person?” Sometimes it feels like we inhabit different solar systems; the notion of a ‘global village’ like a castle in the sky. And most recently, I think of Ameta. Of all the passionate young people my time as a youth advocate on global HIV and health issues has allowed me to meet, he stands out most clearly. A 20 year-old whose maturity in both appearance (wearing yellow) and world view belie preconceptions of youth, he is a native of East Timor, the world’s youngest nation as well as one of its poorest. Health and food security remain major issues, and the threat of HIV looms large. On a recent trip there, he accompanied me on a three-day journey to climb Mt. Matebian. Despite the vastly diverging paths our personal and country histories have followed (I grew up a short flight south of him in a small town in Western Australia), I was astounded at how well we got along, at the most human of levels. Among the things we discussed were our respective aspirations: he is studying engineering to help rebuild his conflict-leveled country, I want to help make that possible; spirituality (he meditates frequently, I envy his discipline); and women (the verdict being that they are a puzzle impossible to solve). Those few days with Ameta were, in hindsight, more rewarding than those spent traipsing around the capital city meeting with NGOs and development agencies. For me, speaking with Ameta drove home the reality that beneath all of these external differences: education, religion, and so forth, we are ultimately cut from the same cloth. We desire the same things in life, and we face similar obstacles. As I prepare for the UNGASS review, where wealthy and powerful individuals will hammer out more resolutions whilst millions of people living with HIV/AIDS struggle on without medication, and while programs continue to “educate” youth around the world that their only hope for stopping AIDS is “secondary virginity,” Ameta rarely strays far from my thoughts. He, and millions of young people throughout this troubled planet, are hungry for the states and institutions which were built to represent them, to let them speak out. To take part in the decision over how to combat a disease which is ravaging our generation, robbing us of opportunity, and breaking down the engines of society. To borrow a line from a rather well-known AIDS organization: Young people throughout the world are under attack…What do we do? Act Up, Fight Back! In solidarity, Mark Addendum: Ameta and the people of East Timor are in the midst of resurging violence and social unrest. In his last email to me, a fortnight ago, he expressed concern over growing “danger” and his hopes for peace. Please keep him in your thoughts. He can be reached at: jcops_xx@yahoo.com