Force for Change:

Goal and Objectives

World AIDS Campaign with Young People

Goal of the Campaign

• To mobilize young people to reduce the spread of HIV infection and to strengthen support for young people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
• To promote and protect their human rights.

Objectives, Messages and Outcomes

This framework document outlines the overall goal and objectives of the campaign and serves as a guide for action. The main ideas are supported by messages and outcomes that remain broad and qualitative so that they can be adapted to country-level needs. On a country level this document can be used as a base to develop the most effective course of action: outlining specific activities, determining who the main actors will be, and taking into account the urban-rural and socio-economic and cultural differences within each context. At the end of the year, the outcomes will help to determine the campaign's contribution in promoting young people's health and development.

1. Promote young people's genuine participation

Messages

• Young people care about making the world a better place and can be a force for change in promoting health and human rights when they are supported by adults.
• Young people can be mobilized and trained as health promoters for their peers and friends.
• Through direct participation young people can further develop a genuine sense of their own competence and responsibility.
• Young people can play a valuable and lasting role if their participation is taken seriously by adults and aimed at developing their competencies and strengths.
• Openness on the part of adults, especially parents, to listen to and communicate with their children is a necessary part of young people's healthy development.

Outcomes

1. Young people's involvement in taking action to ensure their access to information, education, youth-friendly health services, and supportive environments.
2. Adults' increased understanding of the strengths of young people and recognition of their potential to contribute to families and communities.
3. Increased opportunities for young people to contribute actively to their families and communities while enhancing their own well-being.
4. Recognition and support of effective organizations in which young people actively participate in the development and implementation of policy.

2. Promote policies and action for young people's health and development using a human rights framework

Messages

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, can serve as powerful instruments for reducing discrimination and vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.
• Meeting and protecting human rights to information, education, recreation, safe spaces, and employment is fundamental to reducing new HIV infections.
• Young people have the right to be protected from discrimination and exploitation irrespective of their sex, sexual practices, and HIV status.
• Young men should not be fooled into believing that being manly means having unprotected sex with many women. Being manly is the ability to stand up to negative pressure from friends.
• Effective youth work recognizes the strengths of young people.
• Information is not enough! Young people have the right to develop skills, access services, and live in supportive environments.
• Good quality sexual and reproductive health programmes can delay first intercourse and protect sexually active young people from unwanted pregnancy and from sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.
• Prevention works: In Uganda, HIV prevalence among pregnant women aged 15-19 years dropped by over 20% between 1990-93 and 1994-95. In Northern Thailand 21-year-old males have increased their condom use when visiting sex workers from 60% in 1991 to 90 % in 1995.
• Health services must be of good quality, confidential, accessible, affordable, and provided with respect.
• The media can increase societal debate on young people's participation in promoting their health and development.
• Young people who are infected with, and affected by, HIV/AIDS have a right to health care and need support in dealing with loss and grief.

Outcomes

1. Programmes and policies developed and implemented for young people are grounded in the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women.
2. Stated commitment by governments, and the civic and private sectors to promoting young people's fundamental rights to information, education, recreation, safe spaces, and employment.
3. Better informed educators, school administrators and parents who can promote skills-based school programmes on sexual and reproductive health, gender equality, as well as skills for coping with and reducing substance use and violence.
4. Quality educational and entertainment programmes promoting young people's health and development on national and regional television and radio networks.
5. Trained health-care professionals and counsellors who understand and provide youth-friendly and gender-sensitive sexual and reproductive health services for young people. These services should include counselling, testing, treatment of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), peer support, and access to HIV prevention and contraceptive supplies.
6. Support by governments and law enforcement offices for programmes providing youth-friendly counselling and treatment for drug-related problems, clean injection equipment, and information on needle sterilization techniques.
7. Developed and expanded community-based support networks for young people affected by and infected with HIV, as well as for AIDS orphans.
8. Statements by world leaders and celebrities from each region calling for young people's participation in developing policies and taking action on young people's health and development.
9. Activities related to the 1998 World AIDS Campaign are extended beyond the campaign year.

3. Increase awareness of the impact of HIV/AIDS on young people and young people's impact on the course of the epidemic

Messages

• Of the 30 million people living with HIV in the world, 9 out of 10 do not know that they are infected.
• 7,000 young people aged 10-24 are infected with HIV every day. Five young people are infected with HIV every minute.
• 1.7 million young people are infected with HIV every year in Africa. 700,000 young people are infected with HIV every year in Asia and the Pacific.
• By the year 2020 there will be over 40 million orphans under the age of 15 in 23 countries highly affected by HIV/AIDS. Most of these children will have lost their parents to AIDS.
• Young people's energy, idealism, and commitment can be channelled to stop the further spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and its social and economic impact.
• Programmes have demonstrated young people can be valuable resources when given concrete opportunities to promote their own health and development. It is critical to involve young people in developing and implementing policies and programming with and for young people.
• Young men and women living with HIV often face severe discrimination within their families, communities, schools, and workplaces.
• Young people infected with HIV have the same rights to education, health care and support as young people who are not infected with HIV.
• Gay and lesbian young people are often the victims of discrimination and violence. Such discrimination reduces their access to relevant HIV prevention programmes, to friendly health care, and to supportive environments.
• Some young people such as sex workers, drug users, street youth, domestic labourers, young men in the military, indigenous young people, and imprisoned youth are especially vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. The social and economic conditions in which they live reduce their ability to protect themselves and others against HIV infection.
• There are 250 million working children under the age of 18. At least one-third are performing dangerous work such as bonded labour, commercial sex, and domestic service which violates their rights to health and development and makes them particularly vulnerable to HIV infection.
• Young people who are commercially sexually exploited have little or no power to negotiate safer sex.
• For many young people, unprotected sex may be a means of securing money, affection, comfort, shelter and protection.
• Young women are biologically and socially more vulnerable to HIV infection than young men. HIV infection among young women aged 13-19 in Uganda is 20 times higher than in young men of the same age.
• Young women's control over safer sex is inadequate. A study in Jamaica found that 47% of girls had been pregnant by age 19, and that over 80% of these pregnancies were unwanted.
• More than half of the 333 million new cases of STDs per year are among young people.
• Young women often face physical and sexual violence from their partners, family members, sex partners, teachers, and employers placing them at high risk for unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.
• Young people often face major barriers in accessing health care. Such barriers include excessive cost and health providers' discrimination against young people. These violations of rights must stop to change the course of the epidemic.
• We need to know at what age young women and young men are being infected with HIV in order to develop effective interventions.

Outcomes

1. Statements by community and national leaders promoting young people as a force for change in HIV/AIDS prevention and support.
2. Increased media and government attention to young people's vulnerability and risk behaviours for HIV including: young women's vulnerability to HIV; violence in the home, school, workplace, and public space; limited access to voluntary HIV counselling, testing, medical treatment and care; shared drug injection equipment and sexual risk behaviour.
3. Data on young people with HIV/AIDS disaggregated by age and sex, collected, analysed and disseminated.

4. Mobilize social and private sectors to work in partnership on young people's health and development

Message

• Partnerships between social and private sectors, which include sharing of resources and joint action for young people, are powerful forces in changing a world with AIDS.

Outcomes

1. Partnerships on young people's health and development, bringing together governmental and non-governmental organizations including community, youth, and religious organizations, as well as people living with HIV/AIDS, academic institutions, international agencies, the media, and the private sector.
2. Young people, community groups and the private sector collaborate in supporting cultural and recreational activities to promote young people's health and development.

5. Monitor the campaign

Messages

• The 1998 World AIDS Campaign provides a platform to promote policies and action on young people's health and development.
• The 1998 World AIDS Campaign is an opportunity to increase young people's participation in policies and action which promote their own health and development.

Outcomes

1. Examples of the campaign's contribution towards promoting young people's participation in ensuring their own health and development.
2. Examples of the campaign's contribution towards promoting policies and action on young people's health and development using the human rights framework.
3. Examples of the campaign's contribution to increasing awareness of the impact of HIV/AIDS on young people and young people's impact on the course of the epidemic.
4. Examples of the campaign's ability to mobilize social and private sector partnerships for young people's health and development.