UNIVERSITY COALITIONS for GLOBAL HEALTH

Youth AIDS Day, February 26 2008

WHAT: Join students all over the U.S. by taking action to increase funding for global HIV/AIDS as part of Youth AIDS Day 2008.As you may know, Congress is considering legislation that would re-authorize the President’s Global AIDS Initiative. As I’ve written before, this is an opportunity to scale up the US response to AIDS and to reform policies like the failed abstinence only earmark.

* Increase funding levels to at least $50 billion
* End the required abstinence-only-til-marriage earmark
* Provide the training and support for urgently needed new healthcare workers
* Integrate women’s health and social services programs
* Address the structural inequalities that leave women vulnerable to HIV/AIDS
* Eliminate the HIV/AIDS travel ban that prohibits people with HIV from entering the United
States

WHEN: February 26th 2008

WHO: This event is being sponsored by a coalition of student organizations including: University Coalitions for Global Health (UCGH); Physicians for
Human Rights (PHR); Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC); Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) ; Americans Medical Student Association (AMSA)

WHY: Of the 2.5 million new HIV infections each year, forty percent are among
people ages 15-24. Myriad social and economic factors increase young people’s vulnerability to infection, and children and adolescents in many places are uniquely affected by the pandemic as they lose a generation of parents, teachers, and doctors. In some regions, youth are ill-equipped to protect themselves, for lack of knowledge about the modes of transmission. Yet young leaders are taking action, effectively changing behaviors, and shaping a better future. On February 26, student organizations all over the US will be taking action on funding for global HIV/AIDS as part of Youth AIDS Day.

Last year’s theme was Our Future, Our Crisis: Universal Access by 2010. Students challenged the political obstacles in the way of achieving this goal and providing treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS in the Global South. They held dozens of actions across the country, including demonstrations and events, to demand immediate change to address inequalities of access. Youth AIDS Day 2008 will see students pushing their political leaders to reauthorize an improved PEPFAR and to allocate the necessary resources- at least $50 billion- for it to effectively continue to fight AIDS around the world.

Global Health Week of Action, March 24-28*

The annual Global Health Week of Action is set for March 24-28th.* We will distribute a Week of Action Organizing Guide with resources for how to plan your events and actions, educational resources, and issue specific action kits. The guide will be posted on our website and distributed to students by March 1st.

*If these dates do not work because of exam or spring break conflicts, please choose the “best” set of dates for your school. We suggest the 1-2 weeks immediately after spring break as the “best” set of dates.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Access to Medicines, Healthcare Workers, Events, HIV/AIDS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.