Community Programme and Global Village

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Community Programme and Global Village
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Community Programme Rapporteur Team

• Nandinee Bandyopadhyay - (India)
• Glen Brown - (Canada)
• Jane Galvao - (Brasil)
• Bechir Ndaw - (Mali)
• Ec. María del Carmen Quevedo Tobar -
  (Ecuador)
• Amitrajit Saha (Piklu) - (India)

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Community Programme Vision

• Reclaim ownership of the agenda
• Reach and involve diverse communities
• Address issues of human rights, social justice
  and economic inequality
• Bring together community and evidence-based
  science
• Ensure a long-term legacy for the region
• Demand accountability and action

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What is the place of community at this conference?
Is it here? Physically and symbolically removed
in what some have called a Global Ghetto.?
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Or is it here..?

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We are all engaged in a quiet struggle over the
future of community at the conference - and
nature of the conference itself

• We must address -
• The migration of too many scientists
  to attend only Pathogenesis
• The sense of two distinct barely connected
  conferences that many attendees report feeling
• The need to build on interdisciplinary sessions
  and networking opportunities across traditional
  boundaries of community/ science/ funders/
  government/ etc

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Does it matter?

• Where, how and why does the presence of community
  at the conference make a difference?
• The reality behind the statistics
• Experience that can validate or challenge theory
• The ability to break down barriers/myths through
  personal contact
• The recognition and valuing of expertise not
  acquired through advanced studies, but rather
  through life

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Enabling dialogue

• Non-abstract driven sessions - bridging sessions,
  special sessions, plenaries, invited
  presentations, satellites and networking sessions
  - brought depth, diversity and dialogue that
  would not happen in single track sessions.

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12,000 first time attendees

• In Mexico City c. 60 of the conference goers had
  never previously attended the International AIDS
  Conference
• Does the conference accommodate and prepare them
  to make the most of the conference experience -
  to take information, skills, ideas, connections
  and materials back to their home country?
• Are the advance information, orientation,
  logistics, translation, materials, etc enough to
  make the conference accessible to new attendees?

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Communities as partners

• Throughout the conference, we heard examples of
  successes (and failures) in building partnerships
  between community and other stakeholders.

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• Partnerships
• In research
• Early, meaningful - extended to operations
  research
• Clearly understood expectations for all parties
• Investment and support for capacity and
  sustainability of community partners
• Continuing after the project is over
• Similarly in prevention, care/treatment, policy
  making, and all other areas
• How can a partnership overcome inequities of
  economics, social power and formal expertise?

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Partnerships without trust?

• A recurring theme -- are powerful partners
  willing to share knowledge?
• Controversies about how (and even if) the Swiss
  Statement should be shared with PLHIV and their
  partners
• Publish or perish? US government delay of
  nearly a year in sharing important new
  epidemiological analysis with community?

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Partnerships mean deep commitment

• GIPA -- are we slipping back into tokenism?
• Building PLHIV human capital through Greater
  INVESTMENT in People with AIDS
• Commitment to working with youth and children
• HDN bringing 7 reporters age 7-17 to cover the
  conference -- and recognising the huge support
  necessary to make that work

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The voices of communitySex workers

• More plenaries, sessions and networking
  activities than ever before
• The fundamental need to respect sex work as
  work instead of a pathology, and to protect sex
  workers from all forms of explotation and abuse
• Policies that are reality-based rather than
  ideologically/morality based
• Save me from my saviours

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The voices of community MSM

• New attention in a region where the epidemic is
  predominately MSM
• Understanding that poilitical will is the
  greatest barrier
• Recognition of diverse ways of being a MSM in
  different cultural and personal constructs
• Greater exploration of MSM issues in hostile
  social/political environments

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The Voices of Community Indigenous Peoples

• Networking of native/ first nations/ indigenous
  peoples from South Americam, Meso-America, North
  America, and the Pacific
• Need to recognise and respond to the enhanced
  vulnerability and growing epidemic
• Need to understand and respect culture

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Voices of communities

• Women
• Youth
• Transgender
• Homeless
• Drug using/ harm reduction
• Faith
• Migrant

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Voices of communities

• The Global Village as the centre of networking
• Activism throughout the conference
• Technology and innovation as forces for creating
  and reaching community
• Culture as a powerful tool

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Voices of communities

• Human rights approach increasingly applied
• Increasing attention to social justice
• Facing key issues together
• Criminalisation, travel restrictions, housing
• Greater south-south dialogue and coalition
  building

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Place of the conference in community

• Maximizing impact in Latin America - what will
  the long term be?
• Changes in Mexican government policy on methadone
• Head of host country denounced homophobia

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Place of the conference in community

• Expanding scope and participation
• Regional hubs
• Kaiser webcasts
• Activist blogs (AIDS2008)
• Community media

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To Vienna and beyond

• The Global Village and community actitivities
  were messy, sloppy and noisy. They were
  also where the energy of the conference and
  community was, and where the epidemic is.
• How do we bring that energy not just into the
  next conference, but incorporate it as an
  essential part of the worldwide AIDS effort?