Youth Together Against AIDS
The program currently unites participants through group to group letter exchanges and service-learning projects. We provide a guide to understanding the disease and taking action, while facilitating the development of cross-cultural personal relationships that give context and deepen individual commitment to this effort. Participating groups develop their own project to address HIV/AIDS – this can have a local focus or a goal of fundraising to support prevention efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. YTAA highlights how our combined efforts and unique position as young people can help bring the energy, resources, political attention and hope necessary to end AIDS. Click here for YTAA’s latest newsletter. Young people are at the center of the AIDS epidemic. We are currently being infected and affected more than any other group of people in the world. Each day, some 6,000 young people are infected with HIV. That’s one of us every 10 seconds. Young people between the ages of 15 and 24 currently account for almost half of all new infections. And most of these young people live in the developing world, in financially poor regions where there is little access to treatment or medicines that could prolong their lives.
Millions more have been affected by this disease – they have lost a parent, family members, a teacher – the people who make up their community. These losses carry a huge personal toll and, combined with poverty, keep millions of youth from living healthy fulfilling lives. The young people of sub-Saharan Africa have been hit hardest by this disease. In some areas, more than 25% of the adults are HIV positive. Throughout the region 11 million children have been orphaned by AIDS, and more are each day. AIDS has devastated communities and without funding for education and prevention, HIV continues to spread – especially among young people. We can do something about this.We can stop the spread of AIDS. We can learn and teach others how to stay safe. We can raise money to support young people educating their communities in sub-Saharan Africa. We can support people living with HIV here and in other countries and demand that our government and other governments provide life extending medicine for all. We can ensure that AIDS orphans have community support and access to education. We can talk openly about AIDS and protect people with HIV/AIDS from discrimination and mistreatment. We can support research to find a cure. We can be the generation that sees the end of AIDS.People just like us – young, thoughtful, fun, full of life and dreams – are being lost to this disease. Young people like us, are also the ones who, all around the world, are taking action. They are refusing to remain silent about AIDS and working to end its spread, to support people with HIV, to gain access to treatment for everyone, and to provide a good life and education for orphans. We hope you will join us. Please contact us for more information. |
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