More on Barcelona experience

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum members,

I would like to share a few moving experiences from Barcelona.

XIV International Conference at Barcelona

An Experience

The world appeared to be extremely anxious about – how to tackle HIV/AIDS and

its related issues. The infection has touched 40 million people all over the

world, sparing no one – rich or poor. International Conferences are being held

regularly to discuss and find ways to manage the menace. Last year United

Nations organised a Special Session in the UN General Assembly (UNGASS) at New

York and conducted a global consultation for five days.

This year a six-day International Conference on HIV/AIDS was held at Barcelona,

Spain during 6-12 July. Parivartan being invited in both was a part in the

proceedings. The level of seriousness and anxiety could be gauged by the fact

that 10 prominent countries such as US, Canada, South Africa and India were

represented by their present as well as past PMs and Presidents in the Barcelona

Conference. Prominent personalities such as Mandela, Bill Clinton and

I.J.Gujral addressed the issue and made commitment to fight the menace jointly.

More than seven thousand participants from all over the world took part in the

Conference. The Conference enriched Parivartan by many ways – through personal

encounters as well as organised workshops and symposiums. The opportunity of

listening to the world leaders and learning about their commitments helped

deciding our priorities and strategy to address the issue. We also had an

opportunity to reach a large number of participants through the Booth that was

allotted to us. It needs to be mentioned here that our Booth was one of the only

three Booths that were allotted to India. In the Booth, we displayed select

drawings of the students, who took part in a competition that we held during the

AIDS Day.

introduced himself to me in one evening, when I was having a quiet dinner

alone. He was attending the Conference as a media representative from USA. When

he informed me that he had been positive for past 13 years, I found no external

signs of illnesses in him. Due to the nature of my work I was keen to know the

kind of health care he was taking and being HIV positive the extent of social

abuse (if any) he had to face.

Talking about the social outrage he admitted that it existed and he was careful

not to be public about his status. He had a big friend circle, who were aware

about it and supported him morally and socially. And in reference to his health

care he brought out two small bottles to show me the medicines that he had been

taking daily in order to remain healthy. His daily dose consisted twenty

anti-retroviral tablets and another twenty different vitamin pills, which cost

him one thousand US$ in a month.

A quick mental calculation and I was dumb for quite some time. Even if the price

of anti-retroviral drugs were brought down by 50% or 75% could we Indians afford

it?

It was apparent that beside formulating strategies to address the issue, these

World meets and seminars have been successful to remove the stigma attached to

HIV/AIDS and sexuality of all forms to a great extent. I have noticed that every

such event brought the issue further in the open and the positive people felt

more and more confident about their self respect. In fact, not only they openly

discussed about their status, but did not hesitate to ask about the status of

others during introduction.

Such openness could be possible due to a number of factors, one, a large number

of positive people attended these Conferences. Secondly, they had the

opportunity to present papers, address the participants and conduct a number of

sessions and workshops. As the speakers in the several forums, they could convey

their messages to a large number of participants or decision-makers. This is a

tale tell example from our Barcelona experiences:

Ms., representing the smallest island in the world, a young woman and also

an HIV positive person, was one of the three speakers who addressed the audience

during the closing ceremony of the Barcelona Conference. Her other two

co-speakers were none other than Mr.Bill Clinton and Mr. Mandela. While

her eloquence and presentation impressed every one, what was remarkable, her

maturity in thoughts and confidence. She raised the basic issues related to

HIV/AIDS and about care, treatment and dignity of the positive people without

raising her voice or accusing anyone in particular. The poise and the grace with

which she conducted herself not only had the audience spellbound, it sure have

helped the positive people, present there to raise their hope and self esteem to

a new height. The Conference ended but her memory lingered on.

From -

Arati Samajpati

Director, Parivartan, Gujarat.

E-mail: " parivartan " <parivartan@...>

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