So it’s the last day of the conference and as you can imagine, it’s absolutely flown by!
I have been busy editing and uploading podcasts for the YouthForce AIDS website, and am happy to have more awesome interviews and speech highlights up. My favorite part is definitely adding in the music. I’m a wannabe DJ so any chance I get to mix bumping tunes into the mix I make sure to take full advantage of. You can check out the clips here: http://youth.aids2006.org
It’s been a wild ride this AIDS conference. So much going on, so many things I’d love to be at, and as always, such little time. I’ve made some great contacts, had a lot of laughs, learned quite a bit, and really believe that the global AIDS response is moving in the right direction.
Tonight, the 48 fest has it’s winner’s ceremony, and I’m definitely going. It’s going to be off da heaze, fa sho!
I hope that by the next AIDS conference in Mexico City two years from now, we’ll be able to talk about youth participation not as a new innovation, but as an expected, mainstreamed part of the process.
If I’ve learned one thing about the conference it is that AIDS is truly a unifying force. It brings young people into partnership with adults, people of all different backgrounds and beliefs into discussion, and when we finally put this bloody disease in its own coffin, humanity will be all the more unified because of our joint action.
I encourage you all to learn more about the epidemic and get involved in some capacity. As the conference participants know too well…it’s time we deliver!
