International AIDS Conference 2008

Programme Activities

In addition to the conference sessions, AIDS 2008 will feature a set of programme activities that are open to delegates as well as the public. The programme activities for AIDS 2008 will include:

The Global Village
The Global Village aims to intensify the involvement of affected and marginalized communities in the conference and in the global response to HIV/AIDS, in order to bring effective prevention and treatment to communities. Examples of activities include sessions, forums, oral presentations and awards; networking zones; NGO exhibition booths and marketplace booths.
Download the AIDS 2006 Global Village Monitoring and Evaluation Report.

The Youth Programme
The Youth Programme aims to strengthen the participation of youth and the profile of youth issues in the conference through activities such as a youth pavilion, an electronic youth bulletin, a youth media hub, youth presentation space, youth mentorship activities and a youth website.

The Cultural Programme
The Cultural Programme aims to highlight the role of art and culture in the response to and prevention of HIV/AIDS by means of visual arts, literature; film and video; performing arts and other activities.

Applications for the Global Village, youth and cultural programmes are now closed. Thank you for submitting your proposals, these will go through a peer-review process and notifications will be sent late April 2008.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Global Village globalvillage@aids2008.org
Youth Programme youth@aids2008.org
Cultural Programme culture@aids2008.org

Global Village

The Global Village will provide a space to share knowledge and skills, build coalitions, and promote interactive learning among communities living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, policymakers, researchers and other stakeholder groups.

The Global Village will strengthen and support the conference theme Universal Action Now. It will also use the vision of the Community Programme Committee (CPC) to guide the development of activities including the Youth and Cultural Programmes. Please see this website for more details.

Global Village Objectives:

1. Engage the most affected communities in the XVII International AIDS Conference through the Global Village programme, providing opportunities to raise priority issues and to create change on key challenges they face in responding to HIV/AIDS issues;
2. Host activities at the forefront of the debate surrounding key current HIV-related issues while at the same time provoking discussion on new and emerging challenges in the field;
3. Provide opportunities for change, by providing an environment for delegates and members of the public to learn and connect in ways that will enhance their work when they return home;
4. Provide space and opportunities for the creation of new or strengthened coalitions;
5. Provide opportunities and support for marginalized individuals and communities to organize; share lessons learned; advocate to influence policy and programme change; network including across sectors; deliver care, support and prevention programmes.
6. Promote regional efforts to strengthen the diverse communities’ involvement and participation in shaping region’s agenda.
7. Provide opportunities to remind us of our own responsibilities and to remind donors, Governments, the UN and other international agencies of their commitments and responsibilities to the response. The Global Village will also provide opportunities to renew commitments.

The AIDS 2008 Global Village is open to both conference delegates and non-delegates (including community organizations from around the world, local/national groups and the general public) and enables greater civil society involvement and exchange.

The Global Village will cover over 8,000 square metres at the Las Americas Hippodrome and will have high visibility as the main entrance into Centro Banamex. No registration is required to visit the Global Village.

Global Village Activities

Although most Global Village activities will be based on online submissions, the Global Village programme will include the following:

• Global Village Sessions
  Global village sessions will include panel discussions, debates and presentations with Q & A. The sessions will focus on current and emerging HIV topics as well as priority populations and geographic regions. Global Village sessions tend to be smaller and more interactive then in other parts of the conference.
  
• Networking Zones
  Networking zones will bring local and international groups together to plan and implement exciting spaces focused on key populations or geographic regions. These spaces aim to facilitate engagement and exchanges to enhance learning.
  
• ‘Meet the Plenary Speaker’ Sessions
  Meet the plenary speaker sessions will bring the conference plenary speakers to the community and allow interaction and dialogue.
  
• The Virtual Village
  The virtual village will be a website, linked to the main conference site, and will include the following activities that will broaden the conference’s reach globally: moderated electronic discussion boards on a range of HIV- related topics, live moderated chat sessions focused on specific HIV-related topics and live web broadcasts of all Global Village events and activities.
  
• The Video Lounge
  The lounge will feature HIV-related videos, documentaries and other short screenings that highlight the impact of HIV/AIDS, as well as the influential role of film and video in raising HIV awareness.
  
• The Main Stage
  The main stage will be an open space for public discourse, debates, fora, and presentations on key issues and challenges that are featured not only in the Global Village programme, but in the overall conference programme. Rapporteur reports from Global Village activities, from community priorities in conference sessions, and from associated conference symposia and events will be featured.
  
• The Youth Pavilion
  The Youth Programme supports meaningful participation and purposeful dialogue of youth throughout the conference. As the access point for young people at AIDS 2008, the Youth Pavilion in the Global Village will be a space to host meetings and forums, highlight and showcase youth achievements, facilitate networking opportunities, engage adults in dialogue, and carry on the momentum from the youth pre-conference. The Youth Working Group will hold daily sessions on navigating the conference, advocacy tactics, how to record and report back lessons learned, and summaries from the youth rapporteur.
  
• NGO and marketplace booths
  NGO and marketplace booths will provide non-governmental, grassroots organizations the opportunity to interact with delegates and the general public and to showcase their HIV-specific income-generating projects.
  
• The Community Dialogue Space
  In the heart of the Global Village the 2008 Red Ribbon Award communities will create and host a Community Dialogue Space open to all conference attendees. This space will provide a venue to engage with communities and partners from around the world and influence key events and outcomes of the International AIDS Conference. Anchored by two representatives from each of the twenty-five 2008 Red Ribbon Award winning communities, the Community Dialogue Space will be dedicated to open and active discussions highlighting stories of grassroots victories, challenges communities face and opportunities to improve their response to the epidemic. The Community Dialogue Space also encourages a dialogue about developing an enabling environment for community participation in addressing HIV and AIDS.

Youth Programme

The AIDS 2008 Youth Programme will be an opportunity to empower young people, advocate for current and critical issues affecting youth worldwide, and further pinpoint current strategies for effective change. In addition, the programme is working to focus on HIV-positive young people through targeted outreach to HIV-positive youth serving organizations. There will be a new component for young scientists participating in the conference which will help to engage not only activists, but youth from many different fields.

Please see the conference profile for more details on youth attendance and registration.

Youth Programme objectives:

1. To empower young people from both developing and developed countries to be effective advocates at the conference;
2. To facilitate the collaboration of stakeholders committed to youth HIV/AIDS issues at the conference;
3. To promote youth participation and the inclusion of youth issues in the mainstream conference agenda, in press generated from the conference, and in HIV/AIDS programmes and policies in general; and
4. To gain and achieve international and individual commitments which promote youth leadership and mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on young people.

Youth Programme Guiding Principles

The youth programme will have five guiding principles to aid programme planning. These include: leadership has no age limits; meaningful participation; greater involvement of people living with HIV (GIPA); community participation (Geneva principle) and; consultation and accountability.

Youth Programme Activities

Activities will include a youth pre-conference, a youth website, a youth reception, a youth pavilion, outreach activities, cultural activities related to youth, sessions and workshops.

Governance and Support

A Youth Working Group (YWG) has been established to direct and support youth activities at AIDS 2008. The YWG is comprised of youth who are involved and dedicated to the HIV response. Members come from very different backgrounds and areas of expertise and will assist in providing youth with the tools needed to navigate AIDS 2008 and prepare youth for effective advocacy efforts and meaningful participation during the conference.

HIV is a preventable disease. Prevention demands sustainable, science-based programmes. Programmes focused on youth with active youth involvement have shown to decrease HIV prevalence and increase condom use. However, many global, national, and local leaders and policy makers continue to leave youth out of interventions affecting their lives. It is necessary to engage, encourage, and acknowledge youth as assets in the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The International AIDS Conference will include youth in all stages of development. We need Universal Action Now from young people and for young people.

Cultural Programme

The AIDS 2008 Cultural Activities Programme (CAP) will provide opportunities for educators, professional and amateur performers and community members from across the globe to share their methods and tools for communication, education and action for change. The programme will include visual arts, literature, film and video, performance art and other innovative mediums of expression. Activities will take place at the conference convention centre (Centro Banamex) and a more extensive programme of affiliated events is planned for offsite venues around Mexico City to link the community with the conference. In addition the 2008 programme will aim to involve a global community of arts activists working on HIV issues through internet technology and interactive media.

Cultural Programme Objectives:

1. To incorporate the overall conference theme: Universal Action Now.
2. To highlight the role that artists and cultural activists have played in social change related to the HIV epidemic.
3. To emphasize the human, social and cultural aspects of the international responses to HIV/AIDS in all regions of the world, with a special emphasis on Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean.
4. To showcase new technologies and social/cultural movements in the response to HIV.
5. To raise local public awareness about HIV/AIDS and engage local communities affected by HIV/AIDS.
6. To rejuvenate those working in the front-lines of the HIV/AIDS movement and to inspire those not working directly in the HIV/AIDS field.
7. To foster new networks, dialogue and information exchange.
8. To ensure accessibility, balance, transparency, integration and diversity in its activities, processes and participation.
9. To bridge the gap between scientific, and cultural and activist communities.

Cultural Activities

Activities will include live performance (music, dance, theatre, performance art, and readings), photo or art exhibits, and screenings (documentaries, short films or videos).

Skills Building Workshops

About the Skills Building Programme

The Skills Building Programme is a unique component of the conference, spanning the community, leadership and scientific programme. Its purpose is to offer workshops covering a diverse range of topics with the principle aim of providing a stage for teaching specific skills or strategies to specific audiences that can then be applied within their own work or life settings once they return home.

The programme also helps stimulate new and stronger partnerships for problem-solving related to the many different HIV-related needs. People share vital expertise with colleagues from other regions of the world to help overcome the many barriers to care, prevention and management of the epidemic.

Conference delegates have the opportunity to put learning into action. The workshops will use interactive, creative training methods on subjects of critical importance to those facing the realities of the AIDS pandemic today – whether they are a medical professional, researcher, politician, administrator, outreach worker, peer advocate, caregiver and/or a person living with HIV/AIDS.

Skills Building Workshop Selection Process

All skills building workshop proposals submitted to the Conference will go through a peer-review process carried out by an international Skills Building Reviewing Committee, each proposal will be assessed by two reviewers, one of which will come from the same region as the proposal’s issue or topic. The skills building workshop review period will take place late February – mid-March 2008. Notification to submitters will be done in April 2008.

Skills Building Workshops Categories

1. Scaling up and Linkages:

• Role of NGOs in strengthening health systems for scaling up
• complementary therapies and other treatment strategies
• harm reduction
• Convergence options for SRH and HIV in service delivery
• poverty and HIV
• Private Business sector and scaling up HIV/AIDS responses
• Violence against women

2. Latin America and the Caribbean: Lessons shared from a concentrated epidemic:

• cross-border/mobile populations
• faith-based approaches
• population-specific intervention development
• interventions for the underserved or never served
• harm reduction
• masculinities

3. Leadership, Advocacy and Policy:

• capacity building/sustainability strategies/healthy communities
• human resource and leadership development
• Accountability (fund management, monitoring and evaluation, reporting, etc.)
• resource mobilization (private, government, international)
• advocacy and influencing public policy and community programmes (local, national, regional, international)
• Gender equality

4. Intensifying involvement of affected communities and participation of civil societies:

• Role of government in enhancing the meaningful involvement of affected communities addressing vulnerabilities
• community organizing for change
• GIPA and empowerment of PHAs
• network and coalition building among various marginalized communities for better response

5. Science, medicine and community:

• Communicating evidence based science and medical breakthroughs
• interpretation and application of scientific information
• medical education for the non-medical client/worker
• HIV prevention clinical research as a bridge to direct care and treatment.
• accessing science in inaccessible situations
• treatment education/advocacy/medical trials

Cyclone Nargis Leaves HIV/AIDS Patients More Vulnerable

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By VIOLET CHO

Cyclone Nargis affected everyone in the Irrawaddy delta, but it has placed HIV/AIDS patients under even greater physical and mental stress, according to social welfare groups in Rangoon.

A youth member of Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, said many HIV/AIDS patients lost everything they had in the storm’s aftermath.

“Our patients are desperately suffering with so many things at the same time,” said
Yazar, a youth member who is also an AIDS activist. “They are poor, and they didn’t have anything more than daily food to keep them alive. Now they’ve lost everything, they do not have food or a place to stay.”

“We are really worried about one of our patients in Dedaye, one of the hardest hit areas in the Irrawddy Delta,” he said. “She lost her husband in the storm. Her house was destroyed by the wind and now she is living with her child who also has HIV/AIDS.”

He said some patients who lived on Hainggyi Island are believed to be dead, because they have not been heard from since May 2.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, Phyu Phyu Thin, a well-known HIV/AIDS activist who has been in hiding since last year’s pro-democracy protests, said HIV/AIDS aids groups have been contacted by more patients seeking help after the storm hit the country.

More cyclone refugees are making their way to Rangoon Division and the larger towns in the Irrawaddy delta seeking assistance, she said.

According to Yazar, the NLD group has provided food and medicine to more than 60 HIV/AIDS patients in recent days. He said the budget is not able to handle an influx of more patients.

“Problems are coming at us from many directions,” he said. “We have limited resources, and as more and more people seek help, we’re worried about meeting their needs in the future.”

As a social welfare group with a broad awareness of the suffering of the people, Yazar said much help will be needed to rebuild the country and aid the homeless population.

“We especially need more knowledge and skills relating to psychological problems,” he said, “because many people need help to recover from depression and mental problems after the storm.”

The NLD-affiliated social welfare group helps care for more than 2, 000 people living with HIV/AIDS across Burma. About 50 patients live in two houses in Rangoon.