29 November 2001

New York, USA: Two HIV-positive UN Volunteers will take part in an observance of World AIDS Day at UN Headquarters on Friday, an event which will highlight the International Year of Volunteers 2001 (IYV) and the role of volunteers in the fight against AIDS.

The special observance, organized by the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), will take place on 30 November 2001 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in Conference Room 4. The programme, a town-hall meeting, will follow the theme designated by UNAIDS for this year's World AIDS Campaign, "I Care… Do You?"

Among the participants will be Brigitte Syamalevwe, a Zambian mother of 11 children and a UN Volunteer. She has been infected with HIV for the past 10 years. Before the Third United Nations Conference for the Least Developed Countries in Brussels earlier this year, she made a plea to involve those affected by the disease in national policy, "I do not want anyone to sit in conferences and plan the way to look after my children. But I want to be part and parcel of health planning, and that is what I understand by mutual respect and trust."

At her side will be Ainsley Reid, another HIV-positive UN Volunteer who serves within his country, Jamaica. Positive since 1992, Mr. Reid is Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the Jamaican Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (JN+). Mr. Reid, together with JN+, reaches out to more than 200 people within Jamaica, providing the capacity for those living with HIV/AIDS to help meet community needs as part of a national response to the pandemic.

Assisting volunteers in their fight against HIV/AIDS is Jerry Rawlings, the former Ghanaian president and Eminent Person for the UN International Year of Volunteers 2001. Mr. Rawlings gives volunteers a higher profile in their struggle to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic that as of the end of 2000 had infected more than 36 million people worldwide. Two-thirds of HIV-positive people live in sub-Saharan Africa. This year, Mr. Rawlings has toured numerous African States (Botswana, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya and Tanzania) emphasizing community-based responses to HIV/AIDS and stressing the role of volunteers as an integral part of care and support activities. He encourages national governments to improve current health care systems and underlines to the public the importance of behavioural changes in HIV/AIDS prevention.

"Volunteerism carries a lot of moral authority," Mr. Rawlings says. "It is extremely important that we all pitch in and that we all have the courage and willpower -- from governments to each and every one of us -- to contribute our quota to face the reality [of AIDS]."

The United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) continues its intervention to help fight HIV/AIDS and care for those infected and their families. Since 1990, more than 150 UN Volunteers have served under 36 projects and programmes at community, national and regional levels globally. Currently, 78 UN Volunteers, many of who are HIV-positive, work directly with HIV/AIDS, while some 170 combat the pandemic indirectly in disease prevention and health care activities. These are people-to-people projects, getting communities involved in coping with the disease.

The World AIDS Day observance is co-sponsored by DPI, UNAIDS, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and United Nations Volunteers (UNV). It will be webcast live on the Internet. Remarks made by individual speakers will be available for on-demand playback following the conclusion of the programme. The webcast can be accessed via the special web page created for World AIDS Day at www.un.org/events/aids01.

World AIDS Day was established on 1 December 1988 by the World Health Organization, and its annual observance was mandated by General Assembly resolution A/43/15. Since its establishment in 1996, UNAIDS has expanded the single day's observance into a year-long World AIDS Campaign, with World AIDS Day as a focal point.