Spiritia Foundation finalist of 2006 Red Ribbon Award

Jakarta, 18 August 2006 – Indonesia’s Spiritia Foundation is named one of the 25 finalists from around the world nominated for the inauguration Red Ribbon Award this year, an international award to honour grassroots leadership in fighting the AIDS epidemic, which was launched on Dec. 1, 2005.

From the 25 finalists, five local communities from around the world were honored with the Red Ribbon Awards for their outstanding contributions to the frontline response to HIV and AIDS.

By category, they are:

1. Providing access to care, treatment and support for people living with HIV/AIDS: Thai Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, Thailand
2. Addressing stigma and discrimination related to HIV/AIDS: The All Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, Ukraine
3. Addressing gender inequalities that fuel the HIV/AIDS epidemic: The Girl Child Network, Zimbabwe
4. Promoting HIV/AIDS prevention programmes: Durjoy Nari Shongo, Bangladesh
5. Providing support to children orphaned by AIDS and other vulnerable children: Mboole Rural Development, Zambia

“You know the challenges, the many disappointments, the small and large victories that come with AIDS prevention work on the ground and it is thanks to the work of people like you that we already can see some successes in fighting AIDS in certain countries,” said UNAIDS Special Representative HRH the Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, speaking at the award ceremony on Thursday, 17 August 2006.

Nearly 600 communities around the world were nominated for the Award. Through a rigorous review process, a committee of 50 international HIV and AIDS experts identified the top 25 candidates, who were invited to attend the AIDS 2006 conference.

An international jury that included the Norwegian Crown Princess, Oscar nominee Naomi Watts, former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and pioneering doctor Paul Farmer whittled the 25 finalists down to five, one in each award category.

“The Red Ribbon Award is a great opportunity to bring communities together that have fought this disease,” said Kemal Dervis, United Nations Development Programme Administrator. “Sometimes they work in extremely difficult situations, in contexts of war or extreme poverty, and yet they have found ways despite these obstacles to make things happen, to generate some real success on the ground.”

Each of the five winners receives US$20,000 in prize money, while the other 20 finalist communities are each awarded US$5,000. The checks will be presented to the finalists on World AIDS Day, 1 December 2006.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is leading the Red Ribbon Award, working in partnership with UNAIDS, the Community and Leadership Program Committees of the XVI International AIDS Conference and the governments of Canada, Norway, Austria, Finland and Ireland. Other partners include Care International and UNESCO.

The Red Ribbon Award, making its debut this week in Toronto, will henceforth be presented every two years at the International AIDS Conference.

The Spiritia Foundation was established in 1995 by AIDS activist Suzana Murni as a peer support group by and for people living with HIV (PLWH). The aim of the foundation is to empower PLWH and push for their participation in the AIDS response, widen access for support and treatment, as well as push for objectivity and non-discrimination towards PLWH among those policy makers and the general public.

More details of the real-life stories of these communities and the challenges they face in responding to the HIV epidemic are available at: www.redribbonaward.org

Contact:
Elis Widen | UNAIDS Jakarta | tel. +62 21 314 1885 | +62 812 1970 449 | elis.unaids@undp.org
Tantri Yuliandini | UNAIDS Jakarta | tel. +62 21 314 1885 | +62 818 826 874 | tyuliandini.unaids@un.or.id
Daniel Marguari | Yayasan Spiritia | +62 21 422 5163, +62 21 422 5168 | +62 818 780 455 | dmarguari@yahoo.com

About UNDP: UNDP is the UN’s global network to help people meet their development needs and build a better life. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working as a trusted partner with Governments, civil society and the private sector to help them build their own solutions to global and national development challenges. Further information can be found at www.undp.org

About UNAIDS: UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, brings together efforts and resources of 10 UN system organizations to the global AIDS response. Cosponsors include UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank. Based in Geneva, the UNAIDS secretariat works on the ground in more than 75 countries world wide. www.unaids.org

About the XVI International AIDS Conference: AIDS 2006 is the world’s largest HIV/AIDS conference provides an international, open and independent forum for the exchange of ideas, knowledge and research which will inform HIV/AIDS programmes and strengthen prevention, treatment and care efforts worldwide. The theme of AIDS 2006 is ‘Time to Deliver’, reflecting the demands of the epidemic for increased accountability from all stakeholders to fulfill commitments made. www.aids2006.com

Business, government and civil society asked to partner in innovative actions on HIV

Proper work opportunities must be created for people living with HIV

Jakarta, 18 August 2006 – In many low and middle-income countries, growing levels of HIV are continuing to cause serious economic and development set backs. Companies are losing a significant part of their workforce, particularly in high prevalence countries.

While some businesses have made progress in AIDS workplace policies, new constructive and sustainable solutions are needed to develop economically-based partnerships with business, local government, communities and civil society that will reap benefits for all.

In a speech read at the opening of the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada, Indonesian AIDS activist, Frika, expressed concern that participation of people living with HIV has so far been limited to giving testimonies.

“Involvement is beyond testimonies. It is about creating participatory process of policy and decision makings where people living with HIV are an equal stakeholder.”

Frika said that many people living with HIV wanted to contribute more to the society where they live, but were hindered due to the perception that people living with AIDS did not have the right qualifications.

“If we lack academic and technical qualifications, support us to acquire them! I want to be involved and I know I can. I know that there are many friends around the world who live with the virus and would like to have the opportunity to contribute more. I know they can and I know it is possible,” she said.

Discussions on ‘Solutions on poverty, inequality and AIDS: The economic and social empowerment of people living with HIV and AIDS’, heard at a Satellite session co-chaired by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and UNAIDS’ Cosponsor the International Labour Organization on Tuesday, 15 August 2006 at the XVI International Conference on AIDS. The satellite explored solutions and strategies for the economic and social empowerment of people living with HIV and their families which include:

• Ensuring that people living with HIV and their families have proper access to prevention, treatment, care and support mechanisms.
• Building on educational skills and training for people living with HIV and their families including businesses setting up programmes to develop relevant skills and build enterprises.
• Larger companies experienced with developing and implementing workplace policies on combating HIV empowering and training small businesses to do the same.
• Corporations helping to develop and maintain programmes for HIV prevention, treatment and care in the areas where they are located.
• Building partnerships with local government, private sector institutions and civil society.
• Governments giving offering incentives to companies that undertake the above activities.

“Employment opportunities empower and help people living with HIV to be as productive as possible and to be properly integrated into society, as they should be,” Sir Roy Trotman, Secretary-General of the Barbados Workers’ Union at a press conference to highlight the satellite issue.

Emphasizing that targeted interventions are important for social equity and for the efficacy of results, UNAIDS’ Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, Paul De Lay said: “Success in stopping the epidemic, both in countries with concentrated and generalized epidemics, depends crucially on ensuring that people at most risk, including the poor and marginalized, have adequate access to prevention, that they adopt safer behavior, and that they are supported in leading productive lives.”

“Countries can address the trend of low productivity by investing in the community and properly drawing upon the skills and capacities of people living with HIV,” said James Laing, Director of Africapractice.

Elizabeth Gordon Dudu, UNDP’s HIV/AIDS Technical Adviser, South Africa, said: “The positive benefits on communities are also significant – greater involvement of people living with HIV in the working community could help reduce stigma and discrimination and create greater awareness around HIV and HIV prevention.”

Some successful experiences offer examples to build upon. In Thailand, the Positive Partner Project has successfully paired HIV-positive and HIV-negative people in income-producing partnerships. They receive small loans for activities such as livestock raising, laundry services and other low-cost, rapid-return enterprises. And in Brazil, the Business Council Against AIDS has developed educational programmes for smaller businesses, empowering them to implement policy changes and realise longer-term benefits.

Carlos Passarelli, Director of the International Center for Technical Cooperation (ICTC), Brazil, emphasizes the need for better partnerships between business and government. “In addition to forward-looking workplace policies, businesses must build the capacity of HIV positive groups to establish their own businesses. With the epidemic reaching out into the periphery and smaller cities, local governments must create a facilitative environment,” he said.

Contact
Elis Widen | UNAIDS Jakarta | tel. +62 21 314 1885 | +62 812 1970 449 | elis.unaids@undp.org
Tantri Yuliandini | UNAIDS Jakarta | tel. +62 21 314 1885 | +62 818 826 874 | tyuliandini.unaids@un.or.id
Sophie Barton-Knott | UNAIDS Toronto | tel. +1 416 876 0961| bartonknotts@unaids.org
Beth Magne-Watts | UNAIDS Geneva | tel. +41 79 832 3814 | magnewattsb@unaids.org

Uniting for HIV Prevention

UNAIDS, civil society, treatment activists, private sector and governments call for ‘out of the ordinary partnerships’ to intensify HIV prevention efforts.

Jakarta, 18 August 2006 – The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is ‘uniting for HIV prevention’ with civil society, treatment activists, the private sector and governments to call for the global community to mobilize an alliance for HIV prevention.

Representatives from the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO), the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the governments of India and Sweden and Merck pharmaceuticals outlined the concept of ‘uniting for HIV prevention’ at a press conference on the second day of the XVI International AIDS Conference, taking place in Toronto, Canada.

“There is an urgent need to build on good work already taking place and mobilize an alliance for HIV prevention that goes ‘beyond the converted’ involving more than ‘the usual suspects’, and with strong links to HIV treatment activism,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot.

“We need an alliance that is united by commitment to the goal of saving lives, even if we may have different tactics. We need an alliance that draws in the best and brightest minds of our generations, and that is a partnership between governments, people living with HIV, the most vulnerable groups, civil society, faith-based organizations, business and international institutions,” he said.

Across the world, a small but growing number of countries have reduced HIV prevalence through sound prevention efforts. However, in 2005, there were still 4.1 million new HIV infections with over 40% of new adult infections occurring among young people aged 15-24. According to latest estimates, HIV prevention services reach only one in ten of those in need.

In Indonesia, based on December 2005 data, the number of reported HIV and AIDS cases totaled 9,565 cases, while estimates for those living with HIV and AIDS may number 250,000 people. The highest reported cumulative case comes from the age range 20-29 years (54%), while case growth is usually attributed to injecting drug use at 48.9%, heterosexual sex 39.4%, and homosexual sex 4.8%.

However, in 2005 only 5.7% of those in the injecting drug use group has been successfully reached by AIDS prevention programs.

“As a country with one of the largest populations in the world, it is crucial for Indonesia to scale up its HIV prevention efforts,” UNAIDS representative in Indonesia Dr. Jane Wilson said.

Indonesia’s population at more than 210 million people makes HIV prevention urgent to prevent further spread of the epidemic in the wider population.

Separately, Indonesian AIDS activist, Frika, said that the active participation of people living with HIV and AIDS is one of the keys to effective AIDS prevention efforts.

In her speech at the opening of the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada, Frika said that, “we are not simply target groups for AIDS intervention programs. We hold a key role in education, care, support, treatment and prevention aspects in dealing with AIDS, because our lives have been touched by the virus.”

“We give AIDS a human face, so other people can see that AIDS is here and it is real,” Frika, who is also an advisor for the Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (APN+), said.

‘Uniting for HIV prevention’ is a consolidation of existing advocacy and public mobilization efforts around HIV prevention and hopes to harness the collective strengths of organizations in bringing about a sustainable response to HIV epidemic.

The UNAIDS policy position paper on intensifying HIV prevention provides a common ground around which advocacy for scaling up HIV prevention is based.

Uniting for HIV prevention will focus attention on five major areas:

• Scaling up HIV prevention as part of the movement towards universal access to HIV treatment, prevention, care and support. Simultaneously promoting increased access to HIV prevention as well as HIV treatment.
• Removing barriers to HIV prevention—which will involve the full implementation of policy and programmatic actions agreed in the UNAIDS policy position paper on intensifying HIV prevention.
• Resource mobilization for HIV prevention- working to ensure fully funded national HIV prevention plans.
• Capacity building for HIV prevention- building capacity of the public and private sector in order to sustain HIV prevention programmes.
• Evidence informed prioritization of HIV prevention programmes- ensuring that evidence-informed prevention programmes reach those who need them most, including populations most at risk, marginalized and vulnerable to HIV infection.

The broad and inclusive grouping of organizations ‘uniting for prevention’ will seek to influence policy makers as well as generate public opinion on the need to bridge the HIV prevention gap. Together, they seek to shape a movement that will support the realization of universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.

Contact
Elis Widen | UNAIDS Jakarta | tel. +62 21 314 1885 | +62 812 1970 449 | elis.unaids@undp.org
Tantri Yuliandini | UNAIDS Jakarta | tel. +62 21 314 1885 | +62 818 826 874 | tyuliandini.unaids@un.or.id