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Inside this Edition:
Zambia: “Real Man, Real Woman” HIV/AIDS Prevention Campaign Targets Youth [more]
India: Home-based Treatment and Care Program Launched in India [more]
Uganda: Dybul, Coutinho Visit San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego [more]
Zambia: President and First Lady Mark 2007 Malaria Awareness Day [more]
Mark Your Calendar:
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June 6 - 8: Leading industrial nations will meet to discuss global issues in Heiligendamm, Germany for the G8 Summitt.
June 16 - 19: HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting in Kigali, Rwanda. Visit www.hivimplementers.com for more information. |
June Sneak Peek:
Tanzania: Coverage from the launch of SafeTStop, a new initiative offering HIV/AIDS services and related community programs to nine countries along major routes in East and Central Africa.
Rwanda: Coverage from the 2007 HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting. |
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New Issue Briefs Available |
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Visit PEPFAR.gov to read and download the Health Management Information Systems, Surveillance and Surveys, and Palliative Care issue briefs. | | |
“Real Man, Real Woman” HIV/AIDS Prevention Campaign Targets Youth: First Lady of Zambia and U.S. Ambassador to Zambia attend launch in Lusaka
The First Lady of Zambia, Maureen Mwanawasa, and U.S. Ambassador to Zambia, Carmen Martinez, launched the “Real Man, Real Woman” HIV/AIDS prevention campaign in Lusaka, Zambia on May 11, 2007. During the launch at Chawama Basic School, the First Lady and Ambassador Martinez called on Zambian youth to resist pressures to engage in sexual coercion and encouraged parents to talk about the topic with their children.
In her remarks, First Lady Mrs. Mwanawasa said, “The messages imparted to our children must be as dynamic and creative as our children. Messages must be in the form of dialogue and must come from reliable sources they can trust — aunties, uncles, mothers, fathers, teachers and health workers. We cannot expect our children to talk to us, if we do not take the initiative to talk to them.”
Ambassador Martinez urged all parents and elders to take responsibility for creating a safe environment for their children. “They play an influential role,” she said, “in guiding adolescent minds, modeling behavior, in setting limits, and establishing rules.”
The “Real Man, Real Woman” campaign targets youth, promoting positive gender roles and rejects intolerable practices such as coerced sex, trans-generational sex, and exchanging sex for gifts and favors. Furthermore, the campaign will attempt to change the way in which youth define what it means to be a “real” man or woman by urging them to practice responsibility, self-respect and gender sensitivity. |
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The campaign’s mass media component includes advertisements for television and radio, and posters that illustrate the reality faced by young people. The campaign tools show youth resisting peer pressure, sexual violence, and transactional sex. Community volunteers, educators and youth groups will use the material to guide young people on how to deal with pressures to engage in sex and help parents talk about sensitive issues with their children. |
Home-based Treatment and Care Program Launched in India
More than 500 Maharashtra state government officials, employees from non-governmental organizations, and members of support networks for HIV positive people attended the launch of Maharashtra’s new statewide home-based treatment and care campaign, “Ektay Nahi Tumhi, Saath Aahot Amhi,” on May 4, 2007. The campaign — which means, “You are not alone, we are with you” — was launched at the Bel-Air Hospital in Panchgani, Maharashtra, India.
In addition to providing home-based treatment and care services, the program created outreach materials in the area’s local language. These materials will be used by the more than 250 non-governmental organizations, networks of HIV-positive people, and care centers in the region. The goal of the campaign is to address the fear, vulnerability and stigma of HIV/AIDS at the community level by demonstrating that with proper care and treatment HIV is manageable.
The campaign’s materials were designed by HIV-positive people and include posters, pamphlets, films, a music kit, flip-chart, booklet and television spots. The 15 minute film features people who are living positively with HIV. By using these communications materials, community leaders hope to reduce stigma associated with HIV.
The program was developed with support from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to provide home-based treatment and care for HIV positive people in the Indian state of Maharashtra — India’s second most populous state. |
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Dybul, Coutinho Visit San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego
To create awareness about the global HIV/AIDS crisis, Ambassador Mark Dybul, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, and Dr. Alex Coutinho, Executive Director of The AIDS Support Organization (TASO), traveled to California April 25 – May 2, 2007. Dybul and Coutinho visited universities, high schools, and civic organizations in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.
The pair spoke about how the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Emergency Plan/PEPFAR) is turning the tide against HIV/AIDS. Coutinho provided audiences with an African perspective on PEPFAR’s work and how it is being implemented on the ground.
Coutinho told audiences: “It [TASO] is the oldest HIV/AIDS care organization in Uganda and the largest in Africa. It would not have done what we have done without the partnership that we have with very many people and nations. Particularly the partnership we have with the American people and more recently the partnership that we have developed with PEPFAR.”
Both Coutinho and Dybul stressed that everyone can play a role in turning the tide against HIV/AIDS. “The reason we’re succeeding,” Dybul told audiences, “the reason the American people are succeeding is because of people like Alex – people on the ground doing the work. Eighty three percent of our partners are local organizations. Our fundamental purpose is to support local groups and local individuals in a multi-sectoral way, government, non-government, faith, community-based, private sector, everyone to get engaged to tackle their problems, to own their epidemic and to respond in an effective way. And we’re very privileged to have Alex here because he’s doing the work.”
In San Francisco, Dybul and Coutinho participated in a panel discussion on HIV/AIDS hosted by Chairman Tom Lantos (D-San Francisco). Lantos chairs the House Committee on Foreign Relations. They also spoke to students and faculty at the University of San Francisco, as well as toured San Francisco General Hospital. The hospital is home to Ward 86, the first HIV/AIDS outpatient clinic in the United States.
In Los Angeles, the pair delivered a presentation to the UCLA Geffen School of Public Health and spoke to a science class at Harvard-Westlake High School. In San Diego, The Joan B. Kroc Institute hosted Dybul and Coutinho for a breakfast lecture on HIV/AIDS.
Dybul also delivered remarks at three major U.S. public forums, the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, The World Affairs Council of Los Angeles, and the City Club of San Diego. |
President and First Lady Mark 2007 Malaria Awareness Day
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On Malaria Awareness Day 2007, First Lady Laura Bush announced a new $2.9 million public- private partnership between the U.S. Government (USG) and the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GBC) to distribute more than 500,000 long-lasting insecticide-treated nets to some of the most vulnerable households in Zambia. The announcement was part of a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden on April 25, 2007 in which President George W. Bush delivered remarks to commemorate the more than one million people who die from Malaria each year.
The new public-private partnership will provide protection against malaria for approximately one million Zambians. Through the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Emergency Plan/PEPFAR), the American people have joined with the GBC and the Zambian Government to make this partnership possible.
The partnership will build on an existing HIV/AIDS platform to fight malaria in an innovative and cost-effective way. “Through the new partnership we’re announcing today, mosquito nets will be distributed to Zambia’s most vulnerable households. With help from the RAPIDS Consortium, they’ll reach about one million young children, pregnant mothers, and people infected with HIV — almost 10 percent of Zambia’s population,” Mrs. Bush said during her opening remarks.
By building the initiative on the pre-existing, USG-supported HIV/AIDS efforts of RAPIDS, the overall costs of purchasing and distributing the bed nets will be lowered by roughly 75 percent. The project also will be integrated into the Zambian National Malaria Control Plan and synchronized with complementary initiatives to maximize its value and sustainability. |
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This partnership will address critical linkages between malaria and HIV/AIDS in Zambia, which has some of the highest prevalence rates in the world for both diseases. People living with HIV/AIDS are extremely vulnerable to malaria, and face an increased likelihood of death and debilitating illness.
“In Zambia — a country of 10 million people — there are roughly 4 million documented cases of malaria every year. Adding to the crisis is a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. More than a million Zambian adults and children are living with HIV — which means their immune systems are more susceptible to malaria. Malaria kills 50,000 Zambians every year,” Mrs. Bush said.
RAPIDS is a consortium of six organizations that, with PEPFAR support, provide an integrated package of community-based prevention, treatment and care support to orphans and vulnerable children and people living with HIV/AIDS in all nine provinces of Zambia. Consortium members include World Vision, Africare, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, the Salvation Army Zambia, and the Expanded Church Response. RAPIDS reaches more than 154,000 Zambian households through its network of 12,000 volunteer Zambian caregivers. |
Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator
2100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Suite 200 Washington, DC 20522 |
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