Last month, at Advocates for Youth’s 2009 Urban Retreat, I had the privilege of hearing from the new Executive Director of UNAIDS, Mr. Michel Sidibé. Mr. Sidibé talked to a group of 120 youth activists from around the United States and from Jamaica, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, about the inequities that persist all over the world when it comes to access to HIV treatment and prevention information. He specifically shared the startling fact that of those 2 million people who died of AIDS in 2007, 1.5 million were in sub-Saharan Africa.

We as Americans cannot imagine the plight of communities devastated by AIDS in parts of sub-Saharan Africa. We, as HIV/AIDS activists and advocates, youth, doctors, healthcare professionals and citizens of the developed world, need to address the inherent inequalities in treatment access. This opens up a whole new door of how we might start to attack this major inequality problem.  However, the fact that Mr. Sidibé is addressing this issue from the very start shows his dedication and knowledge about what he has to do during his tenure at UNAIDS.

He told us that he supported us, as young people, and that we should not be neglected. He openly discussed how sex and drugs in music and movies are difficult to discuss in an intergenerational dialogue.  Furthermore, Mr. Sidibé took a clear stance in pointing out that drug users are NOT criminals and that everyone has a basic human right to HIV prevention, treatment and care. This stance is controversial in American politics, and today, the only government funded needle exchange programs are in Washington, DC. Mr. Sidibé, unlike many of our American politicians, knows that this evidence-based approach of providing clean needles and harm reduction efforts for injection drug users helps to keep these populations safe from not only HIV but Hepatitis B.

A highlight of Mr. Sidibé’s address to us was when he told us that we were his most important meeting in Washington, DC. Most of the time, youth do not get a public figure’s attention, so hearing that from the Executive Director of UNAIDS was pretty powerful to me, as a youth activist.

After addressing the full group, he took time out to meet with leaders from Advocates for Youth’s International Youth Speak Out Project (youth from Ethiopia, Jamaica and Nigeria) and members of the International Youth Leadership Council such as myself (DC-area college students concerned about youth and U.S. international HIV and reproductive health policies). We were able to have a more in-depth discussion with him about global HIV and the importance of involving young people in policy formulation. How many young people can say they had a chat with the Executive Director of UNAIDS!?

Simply browsing through the UNAIDS website shows the focus that the organization already has brought to youth and youth engagement globally, from Mr. Sidibé’s visit with us and Metro TeenAIDS in Washington, DC, to Y-PEER in Lebanon. It makes me, as a youth activist, hopeful that better things are to come with regards to youth engagement in policy discussions and access to contraception, information and other necessary tools to prevent HIV around the world.