Children, youths priority in anti-AIDS program

Children, youths priority in anti-AIDS program

By Mark Connolly

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (JP): Instead of examining sexual health
and education for the prevention of AIDS, I thought our minds
could explore some broader frameworks that may enable our
societies to improve the health and wealth-being of children and
youth, which in turn could have a dramatic effect on the AIDS
pandemic. For we should all recognize the fact that healthy youth
are the key to a nation's health and prosperity. Rich in ideas,
energy and creativity, young people are a most powerful resource
in AIDS prevention, health promotion and the protection of human
rights.

If the health needs of young people are not met and their
rights not respected, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted
pregnancies and unsafe abortion; alcohol, tobacco, and other
substance abuse and injecting drug use (increasingly popular
among young people in this region); violence, and of course,
HIV/AIDS will continue to flourish in our communities.

In 1993, UNICEF formed five Technical Support Groups covering
the following areas: School-based interventions; sexual and
reproductive health; children and families affected by AIDS;
health communication and the mass media; and youth health and
development promotion.

From this region, there was very strong participation in these
groups from Thailand, Myanmar and the Philippines.

I will only speak about one of the five clearly inter-related
areas: youth health and development promotion. In the area of
youth health, at least four key programming elements have been
identified.

I remind you that we are looking at a broader range of issues,
not solely HIV/AIDS, but keeping in mind, of course, that such
broader frameworks have the potential to enable our societies to
eventually get ahead of many epidemics.

In youth health promotion, one essential programming element
is a national action plan for youth health -- not just a policy
on youth or health, but a concrete plan with responsibilities
within several sectors of society. A second key element is school
health programs that are aimed at improving both the health and
learning capacity of young people in school. A third key
component in promoting youth health at all levels are youth
friendly health services - accessible facilities that kids don't
mind going to because they are treated with respect; services
with increase young people's access to and utilization of quality
medical and counseling services. A fourth essential component is
innovative outreach through youth organizations - focussing on
reaching youth out of school and the most vulnerable and
exploited -- or as we say in UNICEF-ese, those in "especially
difficult circumstances", which includes street children, child
laborers, the displaced and refugees, those kids in armed
conflict and sexually exploited children and youth.

But there is still something missing in this set of
programming elements, for they do not provide the answer to why
the interventions work. The "why" is young people themselves.
Their genuine involvement in any program, intervention, or
activity. Unfortunately, we have historically mistaken youth as
merely "needs" rather than "resources".

Young people today have real strength of character and
independence, which we must respect. They have strongly defined
lines of what they will and will not do, and have a great ability
to know who they are and who they want to be. Because of the role
we play in shaping the culture in which young people grow and
form impressions, we have a special responsibility to young
people. We have to take our responsibility seriously.

In many parts of the world, inequality, discrimination and
violence still cast a long dark shadow over the lives,
livelihoods, minds and bodies of young people. So we need very
broad and strong frameworks so that the youth health approach or
any of the other approaches we may have can really have an impact
on our communities and countries. So in the case of HIV/AIDS, for
example, we may need to think about a more modern approach to
health and development -- an approach that quite obviously is
linked in the United Nations convention on the Rights of the
Child, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
discrimination against Women, and the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.

For health promotion surely depends on the extent to which the
rights of children, youth and adults are protected and respected.
These solid, three pillared framework based on rights clearly
provide a better framework than the existing doctor-driven
biomedical approaches.

These conventions and the declaration provide a bill of rights
for all. It is vital that these instruments be implemented in
order to bring about real changes in the lives of young people.
For it is such "right respected" environments that sexual health
and AIDS education -- not to mention many other programs and
interventions -- truly have the potential to be highly effective.

When we leave this great gathering in Chiang Mai, some will
leave inspired, others depressed. Some motivated, most of us
tired. We should all leave with some hope, knowing of course,
that hope alone will not get us through this epidemic. But with
hope bonded with firm commitments to the protection and respect
of rights, we will prevail.

Mark Connolly is an executive of the United Nations Children's
Fund (UNICEF), New York Headquarters. The above article is an
excerpt of the paper he presented during the Third International
Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific from Sept.17 to 21 in
Chiang Mai, Thailand.