“We have to end the stigma and discrimination that still stop so many people from learning how to prevent HIV and get treatment. And we need resources — enough to provide services that will have a real impact in communities and on entire nations. The need to lead, empower and deliver on AIDS is as real and urgent as ever.”
Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General
1 December 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day. Since 1988, efforts made to respond to the epidemic have produced positive results, however, the latest UNAIDS report on the global AIDS epidemic indicates that the epidemic is not yet over in any part of the world.
Together with its partners, the World AIDS Campaign set this year’s theme for World AIDS Day as “Lead – Empower – Deliver”, building on last year’s theme of “Take the Lead”. Designating leadership as the World AIDS Day theme for 2007 – 2008 provides an opportunity to highlight both the political leadership needed to fulfill commitments that have been made in the response to AIDS – particularly the promise of universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010 – and celebrating the leadership that has been witnessed at all levels of society.
The concept of a World AIDS Day originated at the 1988 World Summit of Ministers of Health on Programmes for AIDS Prevention. Since then, every year UN agencies, governments and all sectors of civil society worldwide join together to campaign around specific themes related to AIDS.
Drugs and HIV: voices of hope in India
Cristina Albertin, UNODC Representative for South Asia, recently visited the north-east of India, where she met determined men and women dealing with drug use, HIV and AIDS.
25 September 2009 - Assam, Meghalaya, Angolans, Manipur and Mizoram are the spellbinding names of five of the eight states in the north-east of India, squeezed between Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Nepal. These states showcase the natural beauty of India's far-flung east. World-known Assam tea is produced here, bringing to mind images of lush green hills and paddy fields, where in a peaceful scenery women pick tea leaves and families cultivate rice. But there are other, little known realities. Some 100,000 people live with HIV and AIDS in north-east India.
Statement of Support for World Day for Decent Work
AMSTERDAM, September 30, 2009- The World AIDS Campaign expresses its emphatic support for the World Day for Decent Work, October 7, 2009, taking special note of the trade union call for action to continue to bring the world out of recession and to construct a new global economy. Decent work means ending the huge inequality between rich and poor which helped cause the global economic crisis and perpetuates and magnifies the conditions that help drive the epidemic.
Infected, Detected, Rejected in South Korea
With a Masters in Education, Andrea Vandom went to Korea to teach university-level English. Since early 2006 she created textbooks and curriculum, taught English to university and adult students, and invented a class where her students learned English by playing sports. She loved her students and co-workers enough to renew her two-year contract in 2008. Needless to say, not someone Korea would do well to threaten with expulsion.
Fuentes:
http://www.un.org/events/aids/2008/
http://www.worldaidscampaign.org/