The Official Youth AIDS 2010 newsletter of the

XVIII International AIDS Conference

Edition 6 (January 2011)

Five months after the XVIII International AIDS Conference, we would like to share with you
some news and outcomes of AIDS 2010. This information is equally relevant for people who
attended the Conference and those who did not have that opportunity to be in Austria.

You can catch up on the previous editions on our website HERE! Don’t forget to subscribe to
the newsletter group youthaids2010-subscribe@groups.takingitglobal.org to receive the
newsletters and information of AIDS2012.

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Read on and Participate in AIDS 2012:

In this edition

1. What will it take for true meaningful participation at AIDS2012?

2. Advocacy at AIDS2010 and Commitments
3. The numbers of AIDS2010
4. What’s coming up in the regions?
5. Acknowledgements

1. What will it take for true meaningful participation at AIDS2012?

By Mimi Melles, Advocates for Youth

It feels like yesterday when I was in Toronto in August 2006. At that

time, it was my first attendance to the International AIDS Conference
(IAC) and I had just spent several months prior organizing for the Youth
Pre-Conference and helping develop our official advocacy campaign. The
campaign was designed with buzz words like ACCESS, LISTEN, MONEY,
TRUTH, SEX.

When we said LISTEN, we said:

“Involve us in decision-making that affects our lives.”

When we said MONEY, we said,

“We need fully-funded programs to protect ourselves.”

Now, it’s months after AIDS 2010 where we were (surprise!) demanding
the same rights. We demanded the 3 HR’s: Harm Reduction, Health
Resources and Human Rights, where “young people are defined, by
what they can imagine not by what they lack” and where “youth are
part of the solution, not part of the problem.”

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Although a significant amount of progress has been achieved dating back from Toronto to most recently
Vienna--I believe that more needs to be done. That’s why, in concrete terms, I’d like to share what I want
to see at the IAC in 2012:

Adequate representation of a diversity of Increased sponsorship of youth participants to

youth on all committees associated with increase attendance by youth under the age of
organizing the IAC. 26.

A substantial number of non abstract-driven Adequate representation at the conference of

sessions have a focus on youth and on every
panel focused on youth, at least two of those
people would be young people themselves.
Full funding for the Youth Pre-Conference and
all other YouthForce activities.
Integration of the YouthForce campaign into
the IAC’s overall advocacy efforts.
Participation of all delegates at the Youth
Pavilion and make a commitment to young
people.
Government and civil society delegates to the
“take two” pledge and sponsor a young person
for every adult participant who attends.
young people from vulnerable populations
including young intravenous drug users (IDUs),
young sex workers, young gay, lesbian,
bisexual, transgender and queer (GLBTQ)
youth and young people living with HIV/AIDS
(PLWHA) particularly from the Global South are
adequately represented.
Adequate representation of local young
people, from Washington, D.C. at the IAC,
particularly young PLWHA and minority youth.
Inclusion of a question related to youth by all
moderators by all the issues in the context of
the panel.

The time is now for us as young people to push for these recommendations to become realities.
Although AIDS 2012 feels like a long way from now, the planning process has already begun and we
could be left behind. It’s now up to us to engage with the organizers of AIDS2012 and make sure that
young people are a part of the planning process from the very beginning.

From Toronto to Mexico City to Vienna to now, my own city, Washington, D.C., I want to say that this
conference will be different—and will embrace the true, multi-dimensional definition of meaningful youth
participation. After all, we were right in Vienna. It’s time to “Now, make it happen!” for AIDS2012.

2. Advocacy and Commitments

By Aram Barra, Espolea / Youth RISE

Messages generated by the Vienna YouthForce through its Advocacy Subcommittee are common ideas
put forward on behalf of young people around the world in regards to HIV prevention, young people
rights and sexual and reproductive health needs and rights. These are then turned into a campaign which
includes: a) visibility materials; b) a commitment desk, and c) capacity building. This year, we put
together an e-consultation through 5 weeks of consultations, with 60 different questions regarding
availability, accessibility and resource development that were filled by 312 respondents from over 80
countries around the world and with a mean age of 26 years. Through the whole process (view the full
process here) we came up with:

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Moreover, we complimented our advocacy efforts with a focalised campaign that dealt with drug policy
and harm reduction. With it, we intended to positively connect young people, sex and drugs and thus
have a greater impact at AIDS2010. In this sense, we decided that the line that connected all of these
subjects and made sense to both the world of drug policy and harm reduction and to the world of HIV
and sexual health was a permanent idea of questioning the status quo around these topics. Thus, we
came with the campaign name: Question!

Nature is diverse. Reach sexual and personal
enlightenment. Protect who you love the most.
Always use a condom. See beyond yourself.
You come across young drug users everyday. And,
if you’ve ever cared to notice, they are no different
than you and me. Break stigmas and
discrimination.
Truth is, young people do use drugs and have sex.
You’re free to make your own choices, just know
what you’re doing. Get conscious about drugs and
sex.
Your drug policy kills young people everyday. Do
you think we can wait any longer? Change the
paradigm.

These four messages were all translated into Russian and German and were accompanied by the
following designs produced by a young drug user and graphic artist:

“Smile, you’re on candid camera!”

Apart from the visibility materials of the advocacy campaigns, a group of young activists used flipcams to
create materials that would be useful for future advocacy campaigns or simply to put related information
out there in a more amicable language. Whether filming UN officials, country and civil society
representatives answering questions related to young people, HIV and drugs or just asking passers to
give their opinion on particular subjects, the team was able to capture a significant amount of material
that is still currently being processed by GYCA, Advocated for Youth, Espolea and Youth RISE.

So far, some interesting videos on behalf of civil society representatives are:

• Rebecca Schleifer from Human Rights Watch: http://bit.ly/bp8J5M

• Steve Rolles from Transform Drug Policy Foundation: http://bit.ly/9j9Dk5

• Niamh Eastwood from Release: http://bit.ly/d2sDLB

We were able to also get some commitments and interviews from: the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria, Michel Kazatchkine; the head of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS),
Michel Sidibé; the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Tony Lake; Programme Specialist for the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the HIV/AIDS Group of the bureau for Development Policy, Andrea
Pastorelli; Associate Expert of the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime, Judith Ulirsch; President of the Austrian
AIDS Society and head of the local office of the International AIDS Society, Brigitte Schmied; International AIDS
Society Programme Manager, Andrea Nannipieri; Director of Grants at MTV Staying Alive Foundation, Sara Piot;
Director of the OSI Global Drug Policy Programme, Kasia Malinowska; Youth Campaign Coordinator of the World AIDS
Campaign, Liping Mian; Co-Director of the Beckley Foundation and Chairman of the Board of the International Drug
Policy Consortium (IDPC) Mike Trace; longtime activist Marcus Day; Administrative Coordinator of the OSI Global Drug
Policy Programme, Akos Lipcsey; International AIDS Society Youth Programme Coordinator, Elisabeth Rohrmoser;
etcetera.

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3. The numbers of AIDS2010
Information provided by the International Aids Society

What happened at AIDS2010? 19,300 participants, including:

16,012 delegates; 845 participants from Austria*; 1,218 participants from Eastern Europe and
Central Asia; 848 scholarship recipients; 1,276 media delegates. Also, 770 volunteers;
197 countries represented; 10,831 abstracts submitted, 6,238 abstracts accepted;
248 sessions (59 non-abstract driven sessions, 79 workshops, 110 abstract-driven
sessions); 19     plenary  speeches;   18  special  sessions; 279 Global Village activities, including 55
sessions, 95 NGO boo!s and 27; NetworkingZones; 151 exhibits; 127 satellite meetings ; 10

scientific prizes and awards; 12,324 Facebook fans

, 8,420; #AIDS2010 tweets
and 48 blog posts; 71,043 visits to www.aids2010.org (since Sunday, 18 July); 12,725+
Vienna Declaration signatures (as of Friday, 22 July)
* Does not include general public participation in the Global Village, which is difficult to estimate.

4. What’s coming up in the regions?

In the next couple of years almost all the regions in the world will host an AIDS Conference. Do you know
where and when they will be? Take a look:

10th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP), 26-30 of August 2011.
Busan, Korea: www.icaap10.org/

13th European AIDS Conference, 12-15 October 2011. Belgade, Serbia: http://www.eacs-
conference2011.com

16th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), 4-8 of December 2011.
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia: http://icasa2011addis.org/

4th Eastern Europe and Central Asia AIDS Conference, October 2011. Dushanbe, Tajikistan:
www.eecaac.org

6th Latin American Forum on HIV/AIDS and STIs, Fall 2012. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

5. Acknowledgements
The Vienna YouthForce was launched after AIDS 2008 and is a global platform for international, regional and local youth
organisations that focus on HIV and AIDS, as well as on youth sexual and reproductive health and rights. We work
together and organise youth activities and advocacy campaigns prior to and during the conference. These activities
include the youth pre-conference, youth advocacy campaigns and the youth commitment desk. Ten youth organisations
participated in Vienna Youth Force and WE THANK THEM ALL !!
Advocates for Youth
Community Forum Austria
Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS (GYCA)
International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations
the World AIDS Campaign
Youth Coalition on Sexual and Reproductive Rights
YouAct
Y-PEER
CHOICE for youth and sexuality
Youth R.I.S.E.

Formation: Aram Barra

Copyleft, January 2011