Meeting Children’s Needs in a World with HIV/AIDS: An International Symposium

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum

On 24th September 2007 Harvard Medical School Boston, Massachusetts, USA an

International Symposium on “Meeting Children’s needs in a world with HIV/AIDS”

was held. The one day Symposium was co-hosted by the JLICA (Joint Learning

Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS) and the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for

Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The keynote speech of the one day event was delivered by Dr. Piot,

Executive Director, UNAIDS. He spoke a brief on global context about children

and HIV/AIDS. He said that children issue is a “forgotten face of the epidemic

and it is very unfortunate that UNAIDS have no exact data for children”.

It is a known fact that orphan and vulnerable children are on the rise and

discussion about this issue is an entry point to discuss AIDS in the community.

Panelist from different stakeholders made presentation on different issues

related with children and HIV/AIDS.

Webb from UNICEF and Adato from International Food Policy

Research Institute spoke on the topic” Strengthening families to support

children”. The key questions of the topic were 1) How

are families being overlooked in the global response to children and HIV/AIDS?

2) How will universal access to health, education and social protection

strengthen responses to children and families affected by HIV/AIDS? 3) What does

the evidence say about the

viability and impact of providing income transfers to affected families?

After the first panelist get over their presentation, on from

Displaced children and orphan funds,Rabia Mathai from Catholic Medical Mission

Board and Juma Otieno from FOCUS (Families, Orphans and Children under

stress), Christian Children’s fund spoke on “Strengthening community and civil

society response”. The key questions of the topic were 1) What is the role of

communities in achieving universal access to health, education and social

protection for children and families affected by HIV/AIDS? 2) Do current models

effectively engage and support communities in the HIV/AIDS response? 3) What is

the role of faith based organizations in strengthening

community responses to support families and children affected by HIV/AIDS?

The third panelist from The AIDS service organization,Noerine Kaleeba,

Gilks, WHO and Ken Yamashita from PEPFAR spoke on “Increasing Access to

essential services to meet children’s needs: Bridging Implementation Gaps”. The

key questions of the topic were 1) What is the status of global efforts to

implement key services for children affected by HIV/AIDS? 2) What successful

models exist for

delivering integrated programming for children affected by HIV/AIDS? How can the

reach and impact of these programs be expanded?

The penultimate session of the event was more focus on policy debate. It was

discussed on “Can low-income countries afford social protection programs to

benefit children affected by HIV/AIDS?”. The key questions that were discussed

are the rights of the children

affected by HIV/AIDS and the funds required to meet the needs of children

affected by HIV/AIDS. The speaker of the topic was Shanta Devarajan,the World

Bank, Malcolm McPherson from Harvard University

Kennedy School of Government and Leach from Research on Poverty

Alleviation.

Summary of key points of the symposium was presented by Donnelly,Global

Health Reporter, the Boston Globe. He is the moderator of the symposium.

Lessons for JLICA and next steps to promote child focused policy and

implementation will be put up on JLICA website before the end of fall.

Ishwarchandra Haobam

Regional Focal Point- South Asia

Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS,

Project Coordinator,

Social Awareness Service Organization,

IDUs Project

Phone:91-0385-2411408

Fax: 91-0385-2411409

Mobile:91-9856136300

Email:ishwarchandra@.../ishwar.haobam@...

www.youthaidscoalition.org