As part of their mandate of reaching their goals in responding to HIV in Belize, the National Aids Commission has been reaching out to young people to get input from this key demographic. Key because they are, or will soon become the most sexually active group, and because social and economic prohibitions make sex among youths likely to be high risk. Today they had the second youth forum and we found out more from the Communications Officer Arthur Usher.
Arthur Usher, National Aids Commission Communications and Programs Officer
"Today's event is a youth forum for HIV, youth, and the future. A youth leaders forum. It is targeting young people from San Ignacio, Belmopan, Dangriga, and Belize City which are basically the three highest HIV rates in the country and so we brought together today and we are hoping to get their feedback as to programmatically how do we move forward with HIV."
"We are utilizing some of the more recent data from the Ministry of Health and some other reports for the past three to four years that tell us some of the issues and some of the demographics that young people are through. What we are hoping to achieve today is that the young people can take that data we are presenting and give us some ideas on how to directly impact change in behaviour to help with the change in behaviour and how we relate to address HIV in the country."
"I hope for a wide range of ideas from community-based ideas to the more technological side of things. Sporting activities, whatever it takes. HIV is not just a health issue, it is a social issue so addressing all the components is the only way to truly effectively create the change we need. Their ideas will feed into our program as for how we move forward."
Over thirty people between the ages of 15 and 29 participated.
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