By Nyasigo Kornel
Eleven-year-old Jasmin Abdalah of Tanzania has been an HIV/AIDS activist and educator since the age of four. She would carry placards highlighting the causes and prevention of the disease, along with her journalist mother, at different HIV/AIDS awareness events.
Jasmin graduated to a chant leader at the age of six before rising to her present position of a public speaker at bus stops, hospitals and open markets. Today she is also a member of Stop Child Poverty (SCP) that is linked with Tanzania Non-governmental Organization (TANGO), a Tanzanian network of non-governmental organizations working for the uplift of children in her country.
Sharing her views and experience shortly after Video Conference held at Tanzania Global Development and Learning Centre (TGDLC) that is done every Friday and combine youth across Africa in dialogue, she says, “As a member of SCP, I use music, dance, poetry, chat shows and other forms of art to create awareness on HIV/AIDS,” the young advocate told Grassroots Features with a confidence that belies her tender years.
Annasteria Whileric, 24, of Tanzania is a broadcaster to PRT radio under RTD that broadcasts midday program about the rights of children all over Tanzania, she was also in the dialogue answering to why this is not child labor.
“I want to ensure that our voices are heard and included in government policy,” she asserts.
Twenty-four-year-old Frida Rwegashora of Bukoba felt her world crumbling when diagnosed HIV-positive six years ago.
As she lay recuperating at a recovery centre AMREF, Frida was devastated imagining the future living with AIDS.
'I was ready to give up my life,' she confesses.
'But then I got thinking of what my future held living with this disease, and eventually this motivated me to get informed about HIV/AIDS.'
Her resolve not to let the illness defeat her led her into AIDS response among youth and hence used as role model in AMREF.
Frida worked with the AMREF, an International NGO, from 2001 to 2007.
Jasmin, Grace Masanja and Frida were among a large group of young leaders from across Tanzania that converged in TGDLC during the regional youth AIDS Conference held from early in April.
Their aim was to get a firm commitment from world leaders to involve youth as equal and effective partners in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
As members of the TGDLC youth and HIV/AIDS program, a wide-ranging coalition of many organizations from 10 countries supporting meaningful participation, integration and inclusion of young people at the conference, these young advocates sought the support of governments and decision-makers for youth initiatives.
Through the TGDLC youth and HIV/AIDS program, these young people seek to be active participants and build meaningful youth-adult partnerships with scientists, programmers and decision-makers to facilitate the exchange of ideas and bring about policy change.
The young ambassadors were brought here to help figure out what can be done collectively to reach a 2015 target whereby 60 percent of youth in Sub Saharan Africa would know of HIV transmission.
Current UNAIDS statistics report that only one in three young men, and one in five young women, have knowledge of how to prevent HIV transmission.
Youth specific programs, youth-led workshops, youth organizations and youth delegates took the TGDLC Conference by storm as they advocated issues around comprehensive information and access to care and prevention services.
The three key messages of the youth force were: Involve us in decision-making that affects our lives and provide us with fully funded programs to protect ourselves; as HIV is mainly spread through sex, we need access to condoms and comprehensive sex education to protect ourselves; and we need youth-friendly health services including prevention, treatment, voluntary counseling, testing and access to harm reduction programs.
These messages were brought up in every session moderated by the youth leaders. The question they asked of each adult was - what are you going to do about it?
Natasha Diala of Zimbabwe narrated how she accidentally got infected with HIV after donating blood at her school.
Despite the conference's attention to promoting access to testing, Natasha challenged people to think about how 'it's just not right for people to be able to test for HIV if they don't have access to treatment.'
From the human rights perspective of living with HIV/AIDS to the elimination of stigma and discrimination and access to funding, the youth made it clear that it was time to deliver on providing solutions to wide-ranging challenges.
Marco Sayari, a Zambian living with HIV, highlighted the vital importance of funding in order to give HIV positive youth access to treatment, peer education and support networks.
Marco Sayari, observed that young people under 25 make up half of all new HIV infections, yet they are often excluded or ignored as key players in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
For youth leaders like Grace Masanja, a key solution is increased awareness through peer education programmes.
Acknowledging that the practice of unprotected sex is very common in her country due to poverty and illiteracy, she says: 'We should acknowledge that we are poor, and take charge of our sexuality'.
Tanzania Development Learning Centre (TGDLC) is a member of the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) with over 120 networked development communication hubs globally. Its core function is to enable decision makers and mid-level professionals and practitioners to access and share the wealth of knowledge and experiences available in the world through the global communication system including video conferencing, Internet, Video, CD-ROM and Print.
TGDLC is a public interest, non-profit organization, whose operations will in future be met from the income it generates. As such, the Centre will be driven by both social benefit analysis and cost-benefit analysis.
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