The event
From 15 - 26 November young people from around the world came together to talk about how all children can be agents of change and help stop the spread of HIV and AIDS.
Hosted by policy makers and professionals of international organizations from around the world, the ideas put forth in the first week were turned into concrete plans of action in the second week.
The e-discussion was just one of the many events leading up to the Global Movement for Children’s World AIDS Day ‘Lesson for Life’. On 1 December 2004 millions of children and young people around the world took part in a ‘lesson’ on HIV, AIDS and the effect of the crisis on children.
The Voices of Youth e-discussion was an opportunity to share your ideas on how to end this crisis, and turn those ideas into action.
For more information about the Lesson for Life, log onto the Global Movement for Children website at: http://www.gmfc.org/hivaids.
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Ryan Clarke |
Online moderator: Ryan Clarke
"I am 18 years old and from Nova Scotia Canada. I am currently a first year university student at Acadia University where I am taking a bachelors degree in Computer Science with plans to minor in English.
For the past year and a half I have been on a Youth Advisory Council for Foster Parents Plan, where our goal so far has been raising awareness about HIV/AIDS. Also, I am now one of the two coordinators for this group.
Being involved in this committee has changed my life. It gave me my first look at what is really happening in the world and now I truly believe that one person really can make a difference."
What was said?
In the discussion, we were asked to find ways to help fight the battle against HIV/AIDS. Many great ideas were thrown around over the past couple of days. One main idea that seemed to be brought up a lot was education.
Education is the key to awareness. If a person can’t understand what is being said or what they are reading, then they will not learn. As well, education has to catch the mind, especially when teaching the youth. If their attention isn’t caught then the message will most likely not be understood. There are many ways to get over these obstacles, such as:
- Presentations – guest speakers, films and workshops
- Demonstrations – workshops (how to use a condom, how to practice
safe sex), plays, stories, poetry, paintings and drama
- Indirect awareness – making young children aware of HIV/AIDS by using the subject when teaching things such as literacy, health and other subjects
- Peer to peer – peer teaching and motivation is a great way to teach youth; youth with knowledge can go a long way
- Media – message boards, posters, brochures
Obviously there are many more ways of fighting HIV/AIDS. Each country has its own way of passing on awareness of this disease. But that is why we are here these two weeks. To share ideas, which will allow us to try new ways of seeing what works and what doesn’t.
There are many reasons why some of these steps won’t work: illiteracy, poverty, religion, negative views, etc. One of the major reasons, though, is the taboo we place on sex. We need to continue to work had to get rid of this taboo, but in the meantime we need to find ways to work around it. If we can’t talk directly about sex, let’s use other methods. One great way is to put a humanistic view on HIV/AIDS. By doing this we could almost put it into a story to teach young children.
In the end youth can make a huge difference on the impact of this disease. But we can’t do it alone. We need to reach out for help from organizations like UNICEF and from our governments. If we can all come together and work as a team to fight this illness we will be one big step closer to fighting it off.
Ryan Clarke
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