The time is short: Young voices crucial to fighting AIDS, says MTV Networks International and UNICEF

Today UNICEF and MTV Networks International’s Staying Alive launched a series of online video blogs, called vlogs, as the first phase of Vlogit, a global video project encouraging young people to share through new media how they experience and perceive HIV and AIDS. Globally, 10 million young people aged 15 to 24 are living with HIV and children and young people account for half of all new HIV infections.

Young voices are a strong force for HIV prevention, fighting stigma and discrimination, and working towards and AIDS-free generation. “Poverty is one of the strongest single factors to explain the epidemic of HIV in the developing world,” says Emishaw Tegegneowrk Yimenu, one ofthe youth winners from Ethiopia, whose vlog details the difficult decisions his family must make that bring HIV and AIDS to his doorstep. Mariel Garcia Montes, a teenager from Mexico, uses her vlog to show how a “non-infected teenager realizes how AIDS affects even people who are not infected.”

By encouraging young people to communicate about HIV and AIDS, Vlogit seeks to show how young people are living with and responding to the epidemic around the world. The Vlogit partnership between MTV Networks International’s Staying Alive and UNICEF is part of Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS, a global campaign to provide children and young people with HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. With the launch of the Vlogit site, young people from around the world are invited to upload their own vlogs. The Vlogit website will remain a new media tool to engage young people in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

Staying Alive is a multimedia global HIV and AIDS prevention campaign that challenges stigma and discrimination associated with HIV and AIDS as well as empowers young people to protect themselves from infection. The Emmy award-winning campaign consists of documentaries, public service announcements, youth forums and multi-lingual Web content. Staying Alive provides all of its material rights-free and at no cost to 3rd party broadcasters and content distributors globally to get crucial prevention messages out to the widest possible audience. The Staying Alive campaign is a partnership between MTV Networks International, Family Health International’s YouthNet, the Kaiser Family Foundation, UNAIDS, UNFPA, Sida, and Creative Review. More information about Staying Alive can be found at www.staying-alive.org. MTV Networks International is also an active member of the United Nations-supported Global Media AIDS Initiative (GMAI). Read Full Article...