UNFPA Lobby Day

Did you know that every minute another woman will die from complications associated with childbirth? Without access to health care and education about pregnancy and contraception, women living in developing nations have a greater risk of dying from giving birth. In Africa, where women are 184 times more likely to die from a pregnancy related complication than women living in the US, 1 woman out of 26 will die each year due to preventable complications. Every year, UNFPA which provides women with prenatal health care and health education, relies on the financial support of the US and other nations.

To help educate legislators about UNFPA, I attended Lobby Day on Friday March 6th in Washington, DC. By educating legislators about the need for congressional funding for UNFPA programs, $50 million dollars was allocated to UNFPA for 2009. As a result of this valuable funding, the UN will be able to implement women-empowering programs that focus on HIV/AIDS prevention, humanitarian relief following a crisis, family planning, and better access to maternal healthcare.

To find out more about UNFPA, click here

Seeing Red!!!

If you were in an airplane flying over the nation of Peru and happened to gaze out of your window, you may have gotten a bird's eye-view of 100 of Peru's most famous actors, musicians, and other notable citizens, splashing the landscape in red t-shirts, forming a giant ribbon. You Prevent, the strategic plan to rid Peru's community of the stigma given to HIV/AIDS, continued its advocacy with its advertising campaign. With the help of UNDP and UNAIDS, their message is: Tolerance, Information, Respect.

This program has set out to inform the people of Peru of an issue that has greatly impacted their population and to rid the stigma attached to getting tested. With friendly images and slogans, the media, who dodged stories of HIV/AIDS, are now informing their viewers and readers wisely and helpfully.

For more information, go here!

INtegrating the OUTcasts

Were you a member of a clique in high school? Whether you were a member of the chess club, a cheerleader, a Mathlete, or MVP of the football team, it was societally acceptable for you to receive an integrated and equal education. However, young people living with HIV have experienced discrimination by society due to the lack of public education about the disease. From 2001-2007 the prevalence of HIV in Eastern Europe has increased 140 percent. People are so afraid of the social effects of being HIV positive that many have neglected to seek medical help for their condition. According to a recent survey regarding the education of HIV positive children, many citizens living in the Ukraine and Russia believe that it “would be better to create a boarding school for them, so that they could be educated separately.”

To combat the negative stigma that is associated with HIV, UNDP has launched a campaign in Eastern Europe to help promote public education about the condition and to integrate historically marginalized populations into society regardless of their status as a HIV-positive individual. Providing equal education, access to jobs, and health care are the main goals of the UNDP's work in Eastern Europe.

For more information, click here

Support Women's Heath and Rights

Americans for UNFPA is working (in the time after the appropriations markups and before the new President and Congress are sworn in) to get the next President on the record supporting global women’s health and rights. They’re taking out an ad in Roll Call in September, aimed at Obama and McCain, with a simple statement “Dear Senators Obama and McCain, promise to fully fund global women’s health by restoring the $235 million that has been blocked from UNFPA in the last seven years” and the signatures of supporters. The visibility of the names of global women’s health and rights supporters will demonstrate the value of global women to both presidential candidates.
Take a second to sign this ad, and your name will be listed with thousands of others in an ad directed at Obama and McCain.

Grassroots Organization Thrives Thanks to UNDP Support

A local aid organization in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, L’Association Trait d’Union des Jeunes Burkinabès (ATUJB), is working to reintegrate former professional sex workers into society with UNDP’s help. ATUJB seeks to provide women with health care, vocational training, and behavioral support, and thanks to UNDP, the number of women helped as well as the resources available have vastly increased. Over 5,000 women are being assisted, empowered thanks to ATUJB to start their own businesses, get educated, and find sustainable jobs.
UNDP also allocated the organization $100,000 to enable it to branch out its services to neighboring towns, as well as increase their capacity for HIV/AIDS services.
On Burkina Faso alone, UNDP gives support to 146 organizations battling HIV and AIDS, and these organizations are contributing to real change. HIV prevalence rates fell from 6.5% in 2001 to 2% in 2008.

Play safe-Help stop HIV

UNAIDS Country Coordinator, Dr. Bernhard Schwartlander, has participated in the launch of the “Play safe-Help stop HIV” campaign. This initiative to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS during the Olympics in Beijing provided 100,000 condoms accompanied by HIV prevention and anti-discrimination information at the launch in Olympic Village. Additionally, all Olympic games participants will receive an AIDS fact sheet and two AIDS videos spots featuring China’s Yao Ming and Germany’s Michael Ballack who serves as a UNAIDS Special Representative.

Empowering Women with HIV

In many affected countries, women with HIV are particularly prone to the detrimental economic and social effects of the debilitating disease. But as Mr. Mechai Viravaidya, Founder and Chairman of Thailand’s Population and Community Development Association (PDA), says of combating the disease:

We all must think out of the box.

It is with such innovation that UNDP and PDA have partnered to launch a “Women and Wealth Project (WWP)” in Cambodia, China and India. The project allows women living with HIV to become entrepreneurs in their own right, with not only technical and marketing support from PDA, UNDP, international agencies and the private sector, but also business management training. The women work together and are empowered to develop their own small social enterprises, in an effort to restore self-confidence and dignity to an often negatively-stigmatized disease. It also provides the women with sustainable economic stability and a sustainable socially-focused business.

When each business is generating sufficient revenue, the net profits will be pooled into initiating a micro-credit program specifically designed for people living with HIV and based on PDA’s “Positive Partnership Project (PPP)."

As Ms. Caitlin Wiesen, Regional HIV/AIDS Team Leader and Programme Coordinator of UNDP Regional HIV and Development Programme, concludes:

In a rapidly feminizing epidemic, the socio-economic independence of women is essential – it enables women to cope with the devastating impact of the epidemic on their family life and sources of livelihood. Smart skills and regular incomes can reduce situations of HIV-vulnerability and helps positive women live with dignity and security.

Teaming up to fight AIDS

While AIDS continues to have its most devastating impact on Africa, it is beginning to become a problem in many other countries. In China, UNDP has teamed up with Yao Ming to launch a national campaign to fight stigma and raise awareness about the disease.

This wide-ranging campaign aims to advocate the reduction of stigma associated with HIV and AIDS among the general population, and to promote the inclusion of family members, neighbors, co-workers and friends living with HIV and AIDS and their families into our homes, schools, workplaces and communities. To increase the impact and sustained use of these materials, UNICEF and UNESCO worked with the China HIV/AIDS Information Network to develop a teacher-friendly discussion guide that is distributed with the posters and an award-winning documentary about AIDS done by Yao Ming and Magic Johnson last year.

Learn more about UNDP's work around the globe to combat AIDS.

UNICEF Teams up with Cricket World Cup to Fight AIDS

UNICEF and UNAIDS have partnered with International Cricket Council to raise awarness to the issues facing children and young people affected by HIV/AIDS. Crickets largest event of the year the ICC World Cup is taking place this week in Jamaica. Teams participating in the cup are going together to support the Unite for Children. Unite against AIDS campaign.

“AIDS is robbing tens of millions of children of childhood itself,” said UNICEF’s Representative in Jamaica, Bertrand Bainvel. ICC President Percy Sonn. “We hope the range of activities delivered at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 will make a difference to raising awareness and reducing stigma around HIV in the Caribbean and across the ever-growing cricket world,”

Globally, 2.3 million children are living with HIV. In 2005, around 380,000 children died of AIDS and 540,000 children got newly infected. Over 15 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS. The UNITE FOR CHILDREN, UNITE AGAINST AIDS Campaign child-focused framework around the ‘Four Ps:’

• Prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission by 2010, offer appropriate services to 80 per cent of women in need


• Provide pediatric treatment by 2010, provide either antiretroviral treatment or cotrimoxazole, or both, to 80 per cent of children in need


• Prevent infection among adolescents and young peopleBy 2010, reduce the percentage of young people living with HIV by 25 per cent globally


• Protect and support children affected by HIV/AIDS by 2010, reach 80 per cent of children most in need

The event is expected to draw over 10,000 spectators and over 2 billion viewers on TV fallowing the event. This is a great partnership that will raise awareness to groups of people who may not have been exposed to the severity of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Sweet videos at
http://www.unicef.org/sports/index_38544.html