Your Eyes and Ears in MEXICO!

Your Eyes and Ears in MEXICO

By Edwina Orowe, Speak Africa(Kenya)

I’ll be traveling to the XVII International Aids Conference in Mexico City August 3-8 2008, where through the YouthForce I’ll be working alongside youth and student journalists to write, blog, podcast, take photographs and produce video.

Through our work we hope to lend a youth perspective to the issues discussed, and bringing youth concerns to the foreground of the conference agenda.

The YouthForce began at International AIDS conference (IAC) 2000 in Durban. This was because of the fact that out of thousand of people attending the world conference, there were just about fifty young people! This was totally unacceptable and especially at a time when young people are the most infected and affected.

As a result, Advocates for Youth and Family Health International joined forces with over 40 other organizations to form the first YouthForce, focused on increasing youth participation for AIDS 2002 in Barcelona. It has since worked towards ensuring that young people effectively participate in preceding conferences since its inception and the numbers of young people have grown, their voices have become louder.

However, this is not enough, and many more young people are still left out and cannot be part of these events and conferences, where they are discussed and decisions are made about them and for them.

The overall goal of the Youth Journalist team will be to provide excellent coverage of Mexico Youth Force activities, as well as the main conference, not only in the interests of increasing the exposure of youth issues at the conference and in the media, but to ensure that youth unable to physically attend the conference can remain updated on conference activities that are relevant to youth and HIV/AIDS.

Community Terms

• XVII International Aids Conference
• Mexico

Article Topic

• Speak Africa Press