Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS - Groups - Action Tools

Message

From:	Lindsay Menard-Freeman [ profile ]
Subject:	Report from Mali Youth Summit - LMF
Sent:	Apr 27th, 2011 - 17:07:47
Attachments:	GYCA Report LMF - Mali Youth Summit.pdf

	Hey GYCA members- I hope you're all doing well! Here is my report from the Mali Youth Summit. I've included it in the body of this email as well as in PDF as an attachment. I encourage others of you who were present at the Summit to submit a report as well, so that we can all share in this experience! Looking forward to tangible action items leading up to the HLM, and beyond. cheers, Lindsay ____________________________________________________________ Lindsay Menard-Freeman Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS Report: Mali Youth Summit 2011 From April 15th to 17th, 150 young people from around the world met in Bamako, Mali to develop a Call to Action leading up to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on AIDS (UNGASS) High Level Meetings in June 2011, and beyond. Sponsored by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and President Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali, the Mali Youth Summit provided a platform for these young people to network, collaborate, and learn from one another while joining forces to produce a strong Call to Action. GYCA staff, National and Regional Focal Points, and members were very active and visible at the Summit, taking on key leadership roles and providing significant input throughout the entire process. Friday 15 Apr The Opening Ceremony kicked off the Summit, featuring speakers such as Michel Sidibe, Executive Director of UNAIDS and the President himself, who both spoke about the importance of youth leadership in the global HIV response. They reassured participants that they will deliver our message at the upcoming High Level Meetings. After the ceremony, the real work began. Participants split up into four groups according to the proposed thematic areas: -Youth Leadership -Policies and Laws Stigma/Discrimination -Access to information and services for key young affected populations (KYAP) -Resources and funding Alongside Mawethu Zita, GYCAs RFP for Southern Africa, I attended the session on KYAP. During this session, the facilitator led us through data about HIV prevalence among KYAP, which included young sex workers, young men who have sex with men (MSM) and young people who use drugs. At this point, we all broke up into groups according to populations, and began suggesting recommendations to be included in the Call to Action. I was surprised to see so few representatives from each KYAP in attendance at the session. While many in the room were either working with KYAP or had related competencies, isnt it best to hear from KYAP themselves what barriers exist for them in terms of access to information and services? I sat in on the young sex workers group, and found that only one of the 15 of us had experience working directly with sex workers, and none of us were members of a sex worker community. We came up with three rough recommendations: 1) -Take steps to reduce stigma and discrimination against sex workers, as it prevents them from accessing their basic human rights; 2) -Ensure the availability of condoms, and training for sex workers so that they are able to provide condom education trainings among their peers; 3) -Prioritize education, especially girls education, as to allow for more options in income-generating activities. With a bit more time to come up with recommendations, as language barriers made the efficiency of the discussion a challenge, Im sure that the groups contributions could have been stronger. After the group work ended, participants were taken through a speed dating style information session about the High Level Meeting process, in which facilitators gave 15 minute poster presentations about the HLM. GYCA staff Sydney Hushie and Ricardo Baruch as well as Regional Focal Point Ajay Uprety facilitated sessions. Following the short sessions, participants gathered back in Plenary to break up into Regional Groups. The North America and Western Europe consisted of three of us. The goal of this time was to nominate representatives from each region to serve on the Drafting Committee. Originally, because the regional group was so small, we were planning to give up our seat to one of the regions with many more representatives. Yet, once each region sent their representatives up to the stage, I noticed that no women had been nominated, and volunteered. While regional diversity in representation is important, gender balance is equally important. Out of the 10 on the Drafting Committee, three were women. Saturday 16 Apr The day began with a Hot Potato discussion between Michel Sidibe and Ebony Johnson facilitated by James Chau. This was an excellent opportunity for young people to ask questions of UNAIDS Executive Director; HRH Crown Princess of Norway Mette-Marit, UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador, raised a poignant question regarding UNAIDS plans to prioritize core funding for youth organizations working on capacity-building and youth leadership, since youth are leading the Prevention Revolution. Following the morning session and tea, participants facilitated workshop sessions on Transformative Social Movements and Strategies to Influence National Policy, in which GYCAs very own Ricardo Baruch offered a presentation called Strategies to Influence Regional and International Policies. After a break for lunch, participants were asked to break up into smaller workshops centered on one of the four issue areas. Zhenya Maron and I facilitated the session on Human Rights: Policies and Laws, and Stigma/Discrimination. The goal of this workshop was to lay out language suggested by participants to include in the Call to Action. On flipcharts around the room, participants broke up into smaller groups and began identifying desired outcomes, outputs, timelines, and goals. From here, we used this language to inform the development of the Human Rights section of the Call to Action. The Drafting Committee met shortly after the workshops ended to begin drafting the document, working until the wee hours of the morning. Sunday 19 Apr - The last day of the Summit is a blur in my memory! During the morning Closing Ceremony, the Drafting Committee finalized language following short meetings to get inputs from Regional Groups. With only an hour or so to integrate suggestions from all regional groups, the document had its challenges heading into the Plenary voting process. It became clear that it was a difficult task to take language suggested by 150 people and put it into a concise and focused document while making sure all ideas were honoured. Yet, despite the documents shortcomings, it ended up being an action-oriented and specific document. The Plenary Session was facilitated by members of the Drafting Committee, and was a space for participants to suggest minor amendments or subtractions to the document as it was presented. Noting that there was time during workshops to provide specific inputs, major changes were not acknowledged. During this session, there were difficulties with translation, making it difficult to communicate between Francophone and Anglophone regions. Yet, language was agreed upon by the majority of participants at the end of the session. After the plenary session, participants disbursed and the Call to Action was delivered to the President of Mali by members of the Steering Committee. The Summit served as an excellent opportunity to get so many young people from across every region into one room to discuss real action items. There was a sense of moving-forwardedness and a great deal of energy poised to send into the future. I was impressed by how many regional GYCA experts were present, and felt confident in their leadership abilities. Even though the time was too short, I feel as though we accomplished a lot during those two and a half days. As many participants have already mentioned in various other outlets, we faced a number of challenges, including limited time to complete each session, language barriers, and internet connectivity issues. Also, logistics issues during the Summit meant that many sessions started late or were completely eliminated from the schedule, taking away from already strained time frames. Further, it wasnt clear why some participants were selected and others were not, and I believe that there is a great deal of expertise in the youth and HIV world that wasnt properly utilized at the Summit. Finally, seemingly benign yet significant structural changes were made to the document after it was agreed upon, which called into question the transparency of the process and consistency of the message. Im looking forward to organized efforts leading up to the HLM, and ways in which we can carry this document beyond the HLM by creating adequate accountability mechanisms. Great work, GYCA Team! -- Lindsay Menard-Freeman Program Officer Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS, a program of TakingITGlobal www.gyca.org www.tigweb.org (T): +212.661.6111 (E): lindsay (at) gyca.org 540 President St. 3rd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11215 Donate now! http://tigurl.org/gycadonate/ GYCA is a youth-led global network of over 5,500 young leaders and adult allies working on youth and HIV/AIDS in 173 countries world-wide. GYCA's mission is to empower young leaders with the skills, knowledge, resources and opportunities they need to scale up HIV/AIDS interventions amongst their peers.