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My trip to Africa started two weeks ago in my country of origin, Ethiopia, where I attended the Africa Youth Forum hosted by the African Union. Many of you have seen blogs and videos from my colleague, Abongwa Victor, a youth journalist who captured the news of this meeting.
If you haven't yet, not to worry...you can check out his blogs here at: www.amplifyyourvoice.org/u/papavic
After this meeting, I decided to take a detour to Nairobi, Kenya and meet youth leaders working for change in their country. This was a nice detour from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as I am now in Bamako, Mali here to attend the Mali Youth Summit hosted by UNAIDS. Young leaders from all over the globe will attend this three-day meeting to discuss the way forward in the global response to HIV/AIDS. I will keep you updated on this meeting, along with my colleague, another youth journalist, Nana Nyarko Boateng.
In the meantime, I would like to share a video series of four youth leaders I met in Nairobi:
1) Meet George, a climate change activist who went to the Copenhagen meeting and is now gearing up for the next meeting in December by planning a month-long road trip from Nairobi to Durban (where the meeting will be).
2) Meet Charity, a youth volunteer at the Red Cross in Nairobi. Aside from her working managing HIV prevention programs, she's currently working on a research project to understand the need of women's access to sanitary towels. Girls and young women often resort to finding anything to replace sanitary towels, including the material from a mattress. As a result, girls face low self esteem and miss school dealing with the lack of access to sanitary towels.
3) Meet Job, my colleague who I met in Vienna. He's a doctor working on women's health (including gynecology) in various hospitals. He's also the National Focal Point of the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS, an organization that I work with a lot!
4) Meet Ann, a new friend from Y-PEER who works with various organizations in Kenya advocating for comprehensive sex education in Kenya's schools.
So that's my trip to Nairobi!
I'm so excited to meet new youth leaders from across the globe here in Bamako. My goal is to share their stories with you on Amplify, so stay tuned for more inspiration!
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