Mexico

Mexico Airport, 5:30 --

I thought I'd slip in a quick departing hello and some reflections on the week, as I plan my return stateside.

I remarked to a few colleagues this week on what seemed to be a collective experience: for those of us who've been attending these conferences for many years, for some reason this conference was the most exhausting of all. I think it's because we have learned what we want to do at these conferences and so we're primed to be effective, whether it's reporting, presenting, demostrating.. and if we've been around, chances are that people link us to issues, and ask us to opine on them, or present our work, so we cram in more than humanely possible.

The result: on Wed night, I felt like i really could not leave the conference. I was simply unable to manage another long haul down the corridors. I described the Mexico conference -- well all the International AIDS Conferences -- as 'Disney World on crack -except about AIDS.' Not that it was so insane - in fact, the conference was run incredibly smoothly from my view as a participant and presenter, but the scale and the sheer number of people and the mix of cultures. When we went to leave at night, it really felt like a grown up version of waiting to get into the litttle boats to tour 'It's a Small World After All' -- complete with the many-cultures theme.

But of course the work and activity and passion was for a serious cause, and I duly took note of the big themes that jumped out for me:

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When members of Brigada Callejera, a sex workers' and transgender rights organization in Mexico City, came to the first of the AIDS2008 activist meetings last Saturday morning, they explained the human rights issues that sex workers here face. Not only are sex workers forced to take STD and HIV tests - and carry a card saying they are HIV negative - a new policy requires them to pay for these tests themselves. This repression is in addition to the fact that sex work is still illegal here, and the police are more likely to arrest workers if they carry condoms.

The group, whose members include Elvira Madrid, Krisna, and Elma Delea, also held a lively protest for access to HIV meds in Mexico yesterday. I believe that Krisna said in the activist meeting on Saturday that antiretrovirals cost 7,500 pesos per month (about $750) here in Mexico, but I need to fact-check that. She did say that indigenous people have almost no access to prevention or treatment services.  read more »

Click for Video

You don't need to know Spanish (which I don't) to understand this video and these photos. We demand fair drug prices for Abbott's Kaletra.  read more »

by Annelies Mesman, youth rapporteur and CHOICE board member, and Vanessa Brocato

“Universal Action Now!”— more than 300 young people from around the world gathered for 3 days before the International AIDS Conference to empower each other to move beyond rhetoric to concrete action.  As part of Mexico YouthForce, young leaders led discussions on not only HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment and care but also the range of sexual and reproductive health and rights and social justice issues that intersect with and complicate responses to AIDS.

“Hope is here.  Adults don’t know the challenges we are facing; they are guessing.  You can never be successful if you design any program for young people without them.  This is for all the adults here: Let the Mexico YouthForce speak!” said Igor Mocorro, a 21 year old from the Philippines.

Prior to this event, 125 young people from 46 countries worked together, communicating virtually, to create key messages of the Mexico YouthForce.  Throughout the Banamex, posters will carry the following resulting slogans:

•    Rights: we have a right to comprehensive, accurate information and services to protect our sexual health.
•    Respect: for our realities, our experiences, and our contributions.  read more »

http://sida2008.blogia.com/ is a community blog in Spanish for activists who are participating in and protesting at the Int’l AIDS conference in Mexico City. This was launched as a companion site to AIDS2008.com (although it's unaffiliated and it's pretty scrappy). Please share this announcement with Spanish-speaking allies and groups you know who may be interested in contributing or reading our dispatches!

Por favor, reenvíen este email...

http://sida2008.blogia.com/ - un blog para activistas durante la Conferencia de SIDA!

Usted estará en México para la Conferencia del SIDA?

Hay un blog en que Uds. puede participar - le invitamos a escribir algo sobre activismo y el conferencia del SIDA en Ciudad de México 2008- su experiencia, expectaciones o eventos que ud. quiere publicar. Ud. debe invitar a sus amigos, compadres, hermanas a publicar también.

A escribir por este blog , ir a http://sida2008.blogia.com/, oprima "publicar articulo", escribir un nombre que ud. quiere usar y para "clave" escribir: "justicia"

Un poco de la historia:

Durante este conferencia activistas del todos partes del mundo vienen a protestar gobiernos y grandes compañías farmacéuticos.
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Believe it or not, I had a difficult time finding much coverage online about the fact that this recent UN report, while calling the AIDS epidemic "stable" in Latin America, notes that the worst epidemics are in Brazil and in Mexico, attributing this largely to "hidden epidemics." From the fact sheet (link below): "Hidden epidemics of HIV among men who have sex with men are happening in several Central America countries—in Mexico more than half (57%) of the HIV diagnoses to date in the country have been attributed to unprotected sex between men." (emphasis added)

If anyone has information on a good article about this, please share?

http://data.unaids.org/pub/GlobalReport/2008/080715_fs_latinamerica_en.pdf