Conference Opens with Youth Focusing on Health Care Workers
By Meheret, August 14, 2006
Posted on RH Reality Check
Attention! Attention! The International AIDS Conference of 2006 has finally begun! With warning from my fellow colleagues that endured three hours of waiting to register for the Conference, I decided to wake up early to make the registration process as brief as possible. With only 20 minutes spent for registration, I enjoyed the rest of the day exploring the Youth Pavillion, which included lounges for chill-out sessions and booths for organizations to offer information on youth-led international HIV prevention work.
The highlight of the day was surely the Opening Session of the Main Conference. Political leaders like the President of Liberia, Mrs. Ellen Johnson, the UNAIDS Director of HIV/AIDS, Peter Piot, and a globally-known couple with a fair amount of money--Bill and Melinda Gates. Even with all these "famous" speakers, the highlight of my day was the spontaneous demonstration organized by a US-based coalition of advocacy organizations, including my personal favorite the Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC), to fully fund the Fund for Health Care Workers (HCW) in the fight against HIV/AIDS. After a powerful HIV-positive, 24-year old Indonesian woman spoke about several issues such as the battle of stigma among people living with HIV, thousands stood up in grand applause. Moments after, members of the coalition of US-based activists stood up with "invisible doctors and nurses" or what was actually medical coats hung on poles. The activist coalition loudly chanted "Countries need to pay, doctors want to stay! Open up your purses, we need more nurses!"
As an activist with the Student Global AIDS Campaign, I admired the strategy to focus attention on pushing funds to keep Health Care Workers on the ground, so that they actually have the capacity to sustain facilities and services in developing countries.
For the remainder of the week, I look forward to speaking up as a young person in sessions and in the daily Caucus for Evidence-Based Prevention Newsletter about important issues like maintaining health care workers.
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