Youth Together Against AIDS

Youth Together Against AIDS (YTAA) connects young people in Cameroon, Uganda, and South Africa with middle and high school students in the United States, fostering communication, solidarity, and meaningful action on HIV/AIDS.

Organized in youth-led clubs that are matched up across continents for one academic year, more than 400 participants are challenged to use their voices to counter the threat that HIV/AIDS presents to young people everywhere. In written exchanges YTAA members, whose ages range from 12 to 24 years, voice their personal stories, worries, and dreams. Through the program’s newsletter they share their art and poetry, as well as experiences, opinions, and questions about HIV/AIDS. This international exchange offers a unique cross-cultural venue for collectively confronting the issues at the root of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, along with a host of other challenges facing the youth.

YTAA clubs also take collaborative action to address HIV/AIDS while honing participants’ skills. In the United States, students raise awareness at their schools about the HIV/AIDS crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa. The youth in Africa create and implement direct-service programs in their communities. Each project is youth-driven, youth-resourced, and youth-implemented!

YTAA’s 2005 – 2006 projects included:

Knowing Our HIV Status: Overcoming Life Obstacles
Cameroon National Association for Family Welfare North West Province, Cameroon
YTAA youth organized 70 young people to meet with health officials, get tested for HIV/AIDS with pre- and post-test counseling, and then join a campaign to provide support for those who learned they were HIV-positive. The goals of the project were to encourage youth to learn their status – an important step in getting necessary health care and stopping the spread of HIV – and to lessen the stigma of getting tested.

I Know… Do You?
Cameroon National Association for Family Welfare Douala, Cameroon
YTAA members organized an HIV/AIDS themed sports day to raise awareness about testing and offered referrals for voluntary HIV/AIDS counseling and testing at the local clinic.

Reaching Out to Other Schools and Villages
Centre for Environment Technology and Rural Development
Kasese, Uganda
YTAA members coordinated outreach visits to youth and adults living in rural areas where access to important information is limited and the HIV/AIDS infection rate is high.

Talking about AIDS, Ending Stigma
Association François-Xavier Bagnoud
Houghton, South Africa
YTAA members held a three-day awareness-raising campaign. Focusing on a different neighborhood each of the three days, government officials joined in community group discussions on HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy, and other issues challenging youth. Materials and resources on these issues were handed out, along with red ribbons and condoms.

Advocacy for Access to AIDS Medicines
Berkeley High School
Berkeley, CA
Members gathered signatures on hundreds of letters to send to a pharmaceutical company, asking the company to make life-saving drugs affordable and available to all.

Art in Action
Oakland High School
Oakland, CA
YTAA members participated in the making of a video about their lives, including the impact of HIV/AIDS, to exchange with their African partners. They also assisted with the creation and painting of a mural honoring social justice heroes.

Raising Awareness and Funds
Head Royce High School
Oakland, CA
Raising HIV/AIDS awareness through posters and signs around their school, these participants held a fundraiser at a dance and raised $1,000 to contribute to projects being implemented by fellow YTAA members in Cameroon, South Africa, and Uganda.

Raising Awareness and Funds
Pacific Collegiate School
Santa Cruz, CA
YTAA members held a classroom-to-classroom challenge throughout the school year as a fundraiser, as well as bake sales and parties in an effort to raise funds to support their partner projects. They raised $600.

YTAA, which receives the majority of its financial support from the Firelight Foundation, is a project of Youth Philanthropy Worldwide: New Global Citizens (YPW) whose mission is to mobilize young people in the United States to help solve the world’s biggest challenges. You can find more information at www.newglobalcitizens.org.

YOUTH AIDS ACTION GUIDE
In the 2005 – 2006 program year, YPW staff visited YTAA program partners in Uganda and South Africa to discuss program logistics and facilitate a video exchange between YTAA clubs in these countries and the United States. This formative exchange assisted in the completion of the first draft of YPW’s Firelight-funded Youth AIDS Action Guide, which is currently being piloted as a resource to help more young people take effective action against the HIV//AIDS pandemic. The manual contains facts about HIV/AIDS prevention, as well as an overview of how issues such as poverty, abuse, and gender inequality contribute to the spread of the disease. Most importantly, this resource is structured as an organizing tool with clear step-by-step guidelines for bringing together peers and taking action on HIV/AIDS as community educators, advocates, volunteers, and fundraisers.

YOUTH TOGETHER AGAINST AIDS
Name of organization or school, location, and coordinator(s)