Last week, several GYCA members participated on the first United Nations HLM on Youth in New York. As part of the events of the International Year of Youth many Ministers of Youth and ambassadors participated giving speeches at the General Assembly and being involved on different panels and side events. A declaration was created and can be accessed here: http://social.un.org/youthyear/high-level-meeting.html (Documents section).

 

GYCA co-organized a Youth Caucus on July 24th with other organizations working on SRHR such as Youth Coalition, YouAct, Advocates for Youth, IPPF-WHR and YPEER in order to strategize for the HLM on Youth and beyond, particularly with issues related to what happens after 2015, Rio+20 and the AIDS Conference in 2012. 50 young people from all over the world strengthen the partnership among progressive international youth organizations for the UN activities.

 

During the main meeting, the Regional Focal Point for Souther Africa, Mawethu Zita, participated in a panel about young people on the AIDS response where 7 Ministers of Youth Affairs from Sri Lanka, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Namibia and Botswana spoke as well. The event was co-organized by UNFPA, UNAIDS and GYCA. More information about the side event can be found here: http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2011/july/20110727hlmyoungpeople/

 

GYCA was also involved on a side-event related to communications on SRHR issues during the IYY. Lindsay Menard-Freeman spoke about the Global Creative Contest that GYCA organized last year: (http://www.unfpa.org/public/op/edit/home/news/pid/807 The winning artwork was displayed in one of the rooms where the side events was taking place.

 

At the end of the HLM on Youth, GYCA staff and some RFPs and NFPs had a training/planning meeting for two days where they had the chance to discuss some ideas of what can be done to improve the work of the organization and also what they want to see happening at the mid term. Among the participants we had Jermaine Tyler from Jamaica, Stefanie Suclupe from Peru, Yvonne Akoth from Kenya, Gerardo Camacho from Bolivia, Rachel Arinii from Indonesia, Emily Carson from Canada, Sydney Hushie from Ghana, Mawethu Zita from SouthAfrica, Ricardo Baruch from Mexico and GYCA staff from the NY office Reshma Pattni and Lindsay Menard-Freeman. Jennifer Correiro, Liam O'Doherty and Sean Keith from TakingItGlobal were also present and facilitated some sessions. Results of the meeting will be shared soon.    

 

Don't forget to "like" our page in Facebook: Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS, to stay updated.

 

GYCA team