Indigenous Responses to HIV, Banamex and Red Ribbon award

I hope that everyone at home is doing really well. We are settling in here in Mexico City and are now right in the thick of things at the International AIDS Conference. It felt like the conference would never start and now that it has begun I feel a bit overwhelmed. Centro Banamex, where the conference is being held is HUGE! I think we are getting in our daily exercise just by hiking to and from our sessions.

We had been briefed on what to expect at the conference but I guess one can never really understand what it’s like until you experience it yourself. There are 25,000 people and hundreds of events every day. It is a bit of a challenge to plan out your day since there are so many events that I want to attend! One of the sessions I went to was entitled “Indigenous Peoples and HIV/AIDS.” There were speakers from Honduras, Mexico, and Canada. It was very interesting to hear about the work they were doing, especially the incorporation of Indigenous language and identity into HIV/AIDS prevention and support work since this is my area of interest. In the session I actually ran into someone from Saskatchewan. We had lunch afterwards and it felt really great to connect with someone who I had so much in common with. I think it’s easy to forget why we are here or to get distracted by the free bags and pens, and lose focus of why we do the work we do. Seeing Judy was a really good reminder of the work I do at home and why it is important that young Aboriginal women are meaningfully involved in the response to HIV/AIDS.

Aside from attending some session today I also spent time at the booth. Our booth is a wonderful place to be! It’s a great place to check in with the other Action Partner’s and get the scoop on cool sessions and performances. It is also nice to be able to see some familiar faces once in a while! The booth is also a really cool place to connect with other youth from around the world. We have been some interesting peeps who seemed really into connecting more with OIYP which is rad.

After a long day at Centro Banamex we begin our trip back to the hotel. The journey home starts with a bus ride to the metro station. I have become very adept at falling asleep about two minutes into the journey. Our days are pretty long here so you have to get your rest in whenever you can. After the bus ride we hop on the metro. You can get pretty intimate on the Mexico City Metro. Sometimes it feels like there are 100 people stuffed into a space made for twenty people. But it’s all in good fun!

On Wednesday night Amy got an invite to the Red Ribbon awards. She could take herself plus two action partners. We decided the best way to choose was to draw names from a hat. He-Jin and I were the lucky action partners! The Red Ribbon awards honor 25 outstanding community organizations who do work in the area of HIV/AIDS. I encourage you all to take a look at the website because the work these organizations are doing is amazing and really quite inspiring. http://www.redribbonaward.org/index.php?lg=en

The event was held in a beautiful old mansion, and we were treated to dish after dish. It was a great change from the cafeteria fare we had been chowing down on at Banamex. We also got to get all dressed up which was great! The girlie girl in me was pretty excited about putting on my fancy clothes.

After the awards we went to a party hosted by our Mexican collogues. We danced the night away, and had a great time getting to know all of our Oxfam International friends in an informal setting.

It was quite the day! Looking forward to whatever tomorrow brings!
Buenos Noches!
Xoxo
Jarita Greyeyes

new ideas- right to the finish!

Today was yet another interesting day of the 17th International AIDS Conference as it was also the last official day. The day began at 8.30am with action partners running along to special sessions and programs, satellite programs and skills building workshops. Others who were on duty at the booth were tasked to provide information to people from all walks of life.

Even though it was the last day of the conference, the booth was still packed with so many people who were interested in finding out more about OIYP and receiving references and contact details from action partners and Oxfam International as a whole. Since the beginning of the conference the booth had been thought by the conference delegates as well as the Oxfam staff as being the most outstanding (the only booth organisation in the entire global village having youth delegates from 15 different countries), warm and welcoming booth compared to the others in the global village. At times the booth was jokingly called a “photo\film booth” as it had been seen that many people were taking photos and films with action partners almost everyday even at the last day of the conference.

Even at the last day of the conference, action partners were evermore excited to attend sessions and presentations. Attending the transgender forum, ART scaling up, an AIDS ambassador presentation were very enlightening for me, especially the presentation made by the transgender community at the AIDS Conference. The most significant issue that was mostly talked about among the panel of presenters and the audience was the right of transgender minority groups to be given recognition as a very different group from bisexuals, MSM (Men who have sex with Men) and Lesbians. The issue of transgender’s having the right to have access to health care services and not being turned down by health workers due to their sexuality was raised continuously among delegates. They are human beings just like you and me and they deserve to be treated with respect. This session unlike the others I have attended was more or less eye opening for me because I never really recognised the vulnerability this group of people had towards HIV/AIDS.

Also during the day nurses that attended the conference also did a protested at the exhibition arena and their message was that they would like nurses to be kept within their respective country’s and not move to other countries that can provide more incentives for such as good salary that may bring about better livelihoods. They were calling on the government to seriously look into issues and concerns that nurses from all over the world raise.

The day ended with action partners packing up and cleaning out the booth.

Mercy Masta, Papua New Guinea Action Partner

Just another manic monday in Mexico

Hola…..!
Hi there, this morning I was the one supposed to do the wake up at 6:45am but guess what overslept, I woke up at about 7am so I quickly grab my bag to get the book where I wrote all the room numbers but I left it at the Global Village, so I just try to call but the respond of the first call was….’ola OMG! Wrong number...by now everybody has already awake so the punishment given to me by Amy was to dance at our booth at the Global Village.

Anyway a lot of interesting events happened today both at the Global village and at the Centro Banamex.I just can’t decide on where to go and which session to attend. There were plenary sessions, satellites shows, entertainments, HIV awareness shows by different groups and it’s my shift to look after the OIYP booth from 8:30-12:00 with Jorge and Jeremy.

So first thing in the morning was at the booth, and then in the afternoon I went to see the Kenyan youth HIV performance, it’s a role play and I learn something from there cus my work is on HIV awareness but do it in the way youth would be interested on….like creative arts and from there I went to the LGBT booth with Manar (Palestine), Emily (Kenya, Africa) and Jeremy (Dominican Republic). It was so interesting to see and listen to them perform at their booth, the only problem was they are speaking Spanish.

Amy, Silviya, Henry, Emily and I took a time away from our booth to a quiet place where we sat there and had a very interesting discussion about LGBT rights. And its almost eight o’clock so all of us (AP’s) went back to the booth, pack up and prepared to go home but George Mike (Zimbabwe) and Jorge (Venezuela) hasn’t arrive so we waited for them at the booth and all of a sudden ‘bang ‘came the music from the main stage…and guess what the OIYP AIDS team 2008 rock the stage. The OIYP team was invited up to the stage and we rock the stage with this salsa beat……that was the high light of the day.

All of us were so tired so as soon as we arrived at the Hotel, we quickly have our dinner and went straight to our bed.

And that is all about today.

Gracias muchias.
Rebecca Bird
Proud Solomon Islands
Pacifica rocks!!!!!
(Monday)

What's going on in Mexico City?

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More news from the OIYP Pre-conference

Saturday 2nd Aug 2008
Final Preparations for the AIDS conference are in their way one day before the opening ceremony of the conference. OIYP day started early at 6am! (Believe it or not it actually happened!). The day was full of three main events; participating in OXFAM pre conference meeting, setting the booth at the global village, and attending the youth reception for the AIDS conference.

The pre conference meeting for the entire Oxfam delegation brought over 85 people who work for Oxfam in different countries, partner organizations, and of course us the Action Partners; the voice of youth among the Oxfam delegation. The meeting listed the activities, sessions, satellite sessions, and press conference to present different papers such as a paper about female condoms. The purpose of the meeting serves making a powerful presence for Oxfam’s delegation to demonstrate a commitment to end HIV AIDS and ensure the people living with HIV and AIDS live a good life with dignity and without stigmatization. The key thematic topics that will be covered by Oxfam are:
- access to medicine
- People living with HIV/ AIDS in work places.
- Global fund / finance discussions for research and advocacy.
- Gender justice
- Health systems
- Health ad reproductive health rights (taboos & stigma)
- HIV / AIDS in crises (such as food security and natural disasters).

The second part of the day was my favourite; setting up the OIYP booth at the global village in the AIDS conference!! Designing the booth in team work was so fun, the results were awesome. The booth has a unique design full of colours and languages and materials brought from 14 countries!! The booth includes the OIYP sign; posters made by each action partner, green and white balloons, and much more (you can see the photos of the booth). Although we come from different countries and cultures, the team created a design of the booth to represent everyone and to reflect the group identity of being part of the OIYP family. Everyone is so excited for the opening of the booth next day and spreading out the message of action partners and the work each represent from our countries.

Although we had a long and full day when we left the AIDS venue (far away from the hotel), 7 action partners had more energy to attend the youth reception organized by the AIDS conference which took place in a museum in Mexico. More than 300 youth from around the world got to meet each other and learn about the work they do in their communities. The fun part of the reception was about dancing cultural dancing from different regions. There was Spanish, Arabic, African, and pacific music and dancing.

The team of APs are registered, ready, and fully prepared for the official opening of the AIDS conference 2008!!

Manar Alnatsha – Action Partner Palestine

01 st AUGUST 2008 in OIYP FREE CANFERENCE..

01st of August .It was very special and very nice day for me. I think my friends also. In the morning all of got up with my wake up call .and we went to the free conference .and we talk with Mrs Cecilia (senior program officer gender and human rights from an organization called SAFAIDS). Actually it was very nice and interest one. And I got more knowledge from that program. And we had thing for think ourselves. after the program we were talk about our booth. And just we started to prepare the posters. it was so funny. And some difficult to me. Because I don’t know how do it attractively. And I could learn about that. It was great thing for me.
And I could get great lunch also. and after the lunch we could continue the same thing which we do. Actually it was very busy day for me. Because I had to issue all the things for our poster. How ever I like to yesterday very much and it was very useful day to me. and all of us.

Thank you

NISHADI
(AP Sri lanka)

IAC 2008 opening ceremony

AUGUST 3rd 2008

The opening ceremony day of the IAC 2008… Every one was excited to see the conference opened and also that mood of big conference we have been prepared to get in for the last 7 days.
I was on call…basically that means it was my shift to wake up action partners at 7ham… I was just reminded by Mercy‘s phone call that it was already 7h30am and she hasn’t yet received the wake up call..I am very sorry guys about this. We went out last night for the youth reception which was awesome and we had so much fun then went to sleep late…I put on the alarm and didn’t help .. Sorry again guys…that’s made the team loose at least 30 golden minutes.
After breakfast taken at our hotel as usual, We headed to the conference venue. We had a small team meeting at our booth stand which is No 240 in the Global Village and after the meeting we started making things ready at our booth. Every thing was set up on Saturday but we just needed a make up of the stand to make it look nice and more attractive.

To understand the beauty of OIYP stand at IAC 2008 you just need to come and see it but you gonna have the privilege to see how it is looking like by checking some of pictures.
The beauty is made up by that diversity of people from 15 countries that speak one language…OIYP…. To tell more than 15 stories on how they have been working to empower their respective community to fight against HIV and AIDS … Did I have mentioned that the OIYP stand is the most professionally and carefully designed, dynamic and most welcoming one?
You can disagree with me but I don’t think that would be the opinion of the people who are attending the IAC 2008 who visited the Global village today. The OIYP stand was crowded the whole day. But there is no way, every one who just sees it, cannot walk away without paying a short visit. With Sylvia playing with those finger puppets , an unique opportunity for the visitors to sign up for the young people message board or give a message to young people with those voice cards, sign up for the FOR ALL Oxfam campaign or just have a chance to learn in just 5 minutes how APs working on HIV and AIDS from Solomon islands, Kenya, Palestine, Canada, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Papua New Guinea, Venezuela, Dominican republic, Somalia, Fiji, South Korea, etc are making difference in their communities . And people are provided by difference sorts of learning materials, posters made by the APs, Power point presentation played, leaflets, CDs, DVDs, and most importantly the privilege to meet and talk to those APs face to face. What another wonderful experience you can expect from a such a big conference if it is not to meet and talk to wonderful people who with their little effort they are making huge impact in their community. They should thank Oxfam Australia who made that possible and we APs we are very grateful to Oxfam Australia who provided us that opportunity to come here in Mexico to learn, share, network, etc...
Some people stayed at the Booth to welcome and talk to visitors but also people had time to go and explore and be familiar with the conference venue or attend some sessions that were going on.

They visited also other stands and learn from what others people are doing on HIV and AIDS.. .Myself I visited that stand of CARE international and I meet that lady..Theresa who is the Program Director of RIGHT TO PLAY , a program I am interested in since we have been using sport as a way to circulate message on HIV and AIDS among youth. I talked to her and I was surprised to learn that they have just started some projects in some parts of Rwanda. She is going to link me with the coordinator of their program in Rwanda and explore ways of partnership. I also wanted to know what is new in HIV/AIDS anti retroviral drugs and visited MSD stand. It is a pharmaceutical company. They have developed a new drug called Raltegravir and according to the information they provided me with, it sounds great. Unfortunately they couldn’t talk to me about the price since they have a sessions tomorrow where they will discuss about it.
We had to meet at 3h30 at the OIYP booth to plan how we gonna attend the opening ceremony of the IAC that was going to take place at Auditio nacianale like 20 minutes bus drive from centro banamex which is the main conference venue.
Some decided to stay at the booth and kindly accept to carry our bags home since we were told that bags will not be allowed at the opening ceremony venue for security reasons. We also sang a song for Allan (Oxfam Australia office in South africa)since today is his birthday…

The opening ceremony was going to be demanding… security measures were tough no drinks no food allowed in the auditorium and you could just have a look on the program…13 successive speeches??? My GOD..oh yes..you will have to listen to this people..
It started with those great performances of indigenous people and other Mexican dance and music at then bye bye bye to the fun time…time for speeches..

Speeches were informative and very good but you know it is not easy not stay concentrated listening to 13 successive speeches. Some people started to sleep after the first 5 speeches.
The speakers stressed on the understanding of HIV AIDS as a medical, social justice, human rights ,equity and development issue.
Dr Peter Piot the Executive Director of UNAIDS said that we have now results about the disease. We have clinical and epidemiological evidences that prove that prevention and a treatment of HIV/AIDS is possible…what is lacking…UNIVERSAL ACTIONS NOW…
We had many speakers including the Vice president of Spain who pledged his government to put 10.200.00Euros in UNAIDS and more millions in researches, etc
Ban Kim moon the Secretary General of UN pledged his effort to make sure governments establish laws and practices that protect men who have sex with men, sex workers and drugs users,to make sure UN member states delivers on AIDS in term of funding, etc..
Many speakers congratulated President Bush for renewing and signing last Wednesday the PEPFAR funding and Global Fund for the coming 5 years( 48 billions $US)
The IAC 2008 was officially opened by his Excellency the president of the federal state of Mexico (Calderon)

After the opening ceremony we were exhausted. It was around 10h20pm.In the bus, on the way back to the hotel, I met those interesting senor from Puerto Rica, Josee and Jorge who are working with the health Minister of Pueto Rica in the center for AIDS and communicable disease and we exchanged about the status of AIDS and the health care systems in our respective countries. Back to the hotel, we had a short team meeting to sort out things for tomorrow, every one was very very tired. It was a long, interesting and very busy day…

by Edmond Baganizi (bageddy@gmail.com)
AP from Rwanda