Caribbean youth activists emphasize solidarity and empowerment to address HIV

For One Caribbean Radio in Brooklyn, reporting from Vienna.

22 July 2010

Caribbean youth and AIDS advocates gathered at the Vienna AIDS Conference yesterday to talk about the future of the epidemic in the region.

Dr Ernest Massiah, Director of the UNAIDS Caribbean Regional Support Team urged Caribbean youth to keep pressure on international donors to maintain commitment to the region. In the face of the financial crisis, he warned that many funders are tightening their budgets. He also highlighted the noticeable absence of Caribbean voices in the central conference spaces, despite worryingly high HIV rates in the region.

The Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS, with support from the Global Fund, will launch a new program this year to work towards universal access to treatment and prevention. The program will target vulnerable populations including sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender people, drug users, marginalized youth and prisoners.

Unifying the islands under one central HIV program will allow for the implementation of projects to deal with marginalized groups, which could otherwise be overlooked at the country level.

The youth component will aim to empower marginalized youths to address the stigma and discrimination that impedes access to services. Elias Ramos presented the work of Yur World, a youth organization in the Dominican Republic. He told One Caribbean Radio that their biggest challenge had been unifying diverse marginalized groups.

But John Waters, of COIN (Centro de Orientacion e Investigacion Integral) who works with Yur World, said that once those alliances are made they become a powerful lobbying voice. “There may not that many trans women in Dominica, or that many effeminate gay men,” he said, “but when they come together they start to have an impact”

The central theme of Caribbean organizing here in Vienna is unity and solidarity to make a stronger presence at the 2012 International AIDS Conference, which will take place, as Dr. Massiah said, in the Caribbean’s “back yard”--Washington DC.