Letter from the Executive Director

Dear all,

This coming year is important for aids2031 as we start to weave together the strands of analysis from the nine different aids2031 working groups and build an Agenda for the Future.

Our newsletter is an effort to share news across the initiative – between the working groups and other contributing partners – to see the landscape of work going on under aids2031 and to highlight linkages and synergies.

As we review some of the early papers coming in from the working groups, the burning questions for aids2031 are – what does this say about the future? Are we asking the right questions? How does the analysis help inform a new (or sustained) path forward?

When aids2031 started three years ago, the vision was to shift the AIDS response from being primarily emergency driven, to one that incorporated long term thinking, anticipating the future implications of our actions now and ensuring that we sustain and adapt our response to both the evolving nature of the epidemic - or multiple epidemics – as well as adapt to the changing world around AIDS.

How are we doing?

For a start, we have contributed to a growing acknowledgment that AIDS is with us for the long term, and with that, the acknowledgment that we need to stretch our planning and financing horizons.

This year is about translating our analyses into tangible recommendations on policy and leadership, program approaches, financing, communication, research, and on other setting-specific actions for a better 2031.

Questions, comments, ideas? Please e-mail us at info@aids2031.org.

Best wishes,

Heidi Larson, PhD
Executive Director of aids2031

Working Group News & Notes

Communication

The Communication Working Group met January 26-28 in London to discuss its ongoing work researching youth-driven social networks, engaging new voices in debates around AIDS communication and how belief systems interact with HIV through public conversations, and analyzing the history and possible futures of AIDS communication. The group is also exploring issues of communication with those exposed to chronic violence and how the use of language contributes to stigma.

Highlights of the meeting: A panel of new media analysts explored, “Social Networks and AIDS: Threat or Opportunity;” Jonathan Kopp, partner of SS+K (the firm that managed communication for young people for President Obama) presented “Mobilizing Youth: Lessons from the Barack Obama Campaign;” and the working group began finalizing their recommendations for the aids2031 final report, An Agenda for the Future. The Communication Working Group also finalized plans to host a public conversation on AIDS in Cameroon in the near future.

Questions or comments about the Communication Working Group? Please e-mail Working Group convener Denise Gray-Felder at denise@communicationforsocialchange.org.

Science and Technology

The Science and Technology Working Group hosted two meetings in November 2008 to discuss how the science and technology community can create a more enabling environment for innovation in HIV discovery science, and development of new technologies to prevent, diagnose and treat HIV/AIDS.

The group released eight working papers in December 2008, exploring a diverse range of issues including community involvement in prevention trials and future trends in treatment. The papers are available on the aids2031 website. In April 2009, the group will convene a meeting on the Introduction & Adoption of New HIV/AIDS Technologies.

Film series highlights the needs of young people living with HIV

Love in the Time of HIV, a documentary series that aired in late 2008 on BBC World, follows young people living with HIV in five different cities as they navigate dating, careers, and having children.

Want to get involved? Host a community screening of one of the five compelling episodes that includes a discussion session afterwards on some of the themes raised by the series, including: stigma and discrimination, criminalization, gender inequality and sexual and reproductive rights.

To host a screening, please contact: media@aids2031.org.

Upcoming Events

February

Sex, Rights & the Law in a World with AIDS
February 23 – 25, 2009
Cuernavaca, Mexico
Hosted by aids2031, the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, and UNDP.

The aids2031 Social Drivers Working Group will convene 30 participants for a two-day meeting on critical issues for the long-term AIDS response relating to sexuality, gender and human rights.

March

Mobilizing Social Capital in a World with AIDS
March 30 - April 1
Schloss Leopoldskron, Salzburg, Austria
Hosted by aids2031

The aids2031 Social Drivers Working Group organized this workshop to elicit innovative thinking from researchers and practitioners on how to address the complex social and political obstacles to the successful prevention of HIV for the long-term response.

aids2031 Young Leaders Updates

aids2031 Young Leaders Summit inspires new global health initiative

Last March in a brightly-lit conference room at the famous Googleplex, or Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California, Andrew Bentley, an associate in Google's online sales department, found himself seated in a circle with a lively group of strangers.

Bentley was participating in the aids2031 Young Leaders Summit, a meeting of established AIDS leaders with forty young leaders from a wide range of backgrounds. Some were AIDS activists; others ran technology businesses, worked in media or for international institutions like UNAIDS. aids2031 convened the Summit to provoke fresh thinking around how young people can impact the long-term AIDS response.

A self-proclaimed ‘conference rat', Bentley had dabbled in global health issues but had never studied public health or been involved in AIDS advocacy, and he wasn't sure how he fit in with this group.

Then Jonny Dorsey, a student at Stanford University and the founder of the nonprofit FACE AIDS, threw an idea into the circle.

"There should be something out there that's like a Teach for America for global health," Dorsey said.

Continue reading article.

New publication on building sustainable leadership

aids2031’s Youth Strategy Coordinator, Caitlin Chandler, is on the Taskforce on Sustainable Youth Leadership, which recently released Youth Leadership: Recommendations for Sustainability published by the World AIDS Campaign. The recommendations detail how donors, institutions and young people can collectively support youth-led organizations and foster sustained youth leadership in the AIDS movement.

Does HIV Look Like Me? launches new campaign

aids2031 Young Leaders Summit participant Todd Murray's nonprofit, Hope's Voice International, recently premiered their Does HIV Look Like Me? media campaign in South Africa and Swaziland. The Does HIV Look Like Me? campaign trains young people living with HIV and AIDS to share their stories and do HIV awareness and education work in their communities.

Learn more on the campaign website.