The Asia Catalyst booth. L-R: Li Dan, Shen Tingting, Will Lian. (Courtesy Zhao Gang)

A few highlights from the International AIDS Conference, from us and our Chinese partners — with some of their photos.

Meg Davis, Asia Catalyst:

·
Being part of a conference of 22,000 people on AIDS and human rights was intense–15-20 hour days were the norm–but energizing too. Normally, our work feels marginalized; for one week, the issues we care about
were center stage.

·
The spontaneous connections were the best – for instance, when a French recovering
drug user from AIDES trained Zhao Gang from Kangxin Home in safe injection. Zhao
Gang took a stack of injection kits back to China to “show the local government
how it’s done”.

·
Hearing Joanne Csete, sitting onstage with Michel Kazatchkine, describe her dream of a
wonderful “big fat funder” that would work with countries to improve their
human rights practices as a condition of support. “The Global Fund, however, is
not that funder.” Wow.

·
Sitting on the square after the human rights rally, drinking lager and singing the Internationale with Chinese friends after their first human rights march.

 

International activists meet to plan funding protest (Courtesy Zhao Gang)

Zhao Gang, Kangxin Home (Drug User NGO), Yunnan, China:

Zhao Gang was the winner of a competition Asia Catalyst held for a scholarship to participate in the conference.

·
Seeing organizations from all over the world, and learning about the policy issues in
other countries and their advocacy work.

·
Meeting with drug user groups from France and Canada, and learning about successful
work experiences they have had – this is really useful for our group.

·
Seeing protests that we would never see in China, and the process that organizations
from many different countries use to plan the protest together. During the
march, seeing police stand on the sidelines without doing anything – this is
impossible in China.

·
After participating in this meeting, we have so much that we need to study,
especially English language. If we can improve our English skills a bit, we
could learn so much more at the next meeting. In the future we are really going
to work hard on this.

Will Lian translating at the Asia Catalyst/TTAG/Korekata workshop on rights documentation
(Courtesy Ken Oh)

Ken Oh, editor, Asia Report, Philadelphia, USA:

• Hearing Katie Krauss (AIDS Policy Project) at the Eye on China session ask Bernard
  Schwartlander (UNAIDS) about (Chinese AIDS activist) Wan Yanhai.
• Following a women’s samba drum group during the human rights march, which
  ended in a concert by Annie Lennox singing songs that everyone recognized
  (except me).
• In the media center, watching the swarm of journalists rush to computers
  to report the news of the tenofovir microbicide trial
  results.
• Watching Julio Montaner and Brigitte Schmidt’s Opening Session speeches interrupted
  by activists protesting the decreased funding of HIV/AIDS programs.
  

  Pink ribbon at the Museumsquartier (courtesy Will Lian)

  William Lian,
  Aibai, Beijing, China:

  Will was the translator for members of our group who only spoke Chinese.

• As translator for our delegates, I was able to attend a diverse range of sessions and workshops. To just name
  a few subjects, youth talking about sexuality and sexual pleasure,
  women’s rights, and men in incarceration — topics I previously had little
  chance to learn about, but started developing interests in during the conference.

  Because I was translating for two
  activists from Yunnan, we were able to share our community experiences
  across the fields of MSM, drug users and the use of Buddhism for AIDS
  education.

• It was inspiring to directly work
  for Asia Catalyst, since they were extremely empathetic and thoughtful
  to make every team member comfortable in an unfamiliar environment. They ensured
  each person was on board and had their own gains in the conference.
• 

Meg Davis and IAC volunteer at the human rights march (Courtesy Shen Tingting)

Shen Tingting, Dongjen Center for Human Rights Education and Action, Beijing, China:

·
Seeing AIDS NGOs from around the world join together to express their views at the
Global Fund protest and the human rights march.

·
We were able to meet with senior officials from the Global Fund and UNAIDS, to
share  issues that we have no other way
to raise at home, and to brainstorm solutions.

·
I feel that there need to be more opportunities for Chinese NGOs to participate
in this kind of international platform, so at the next ICAAP (Asian AIDS) meeting
in Korea, my organization is planning to organize a delegation of Chinese NGOs.

 

The Wishing Tree in the Global Village (Courtesy Zhao Gang)

Xu Haibo, Korekata AIDS Law Center, Beijing, China:

·
We met with many different people, and for each meeting we had to prepare
differently. If it was someone who could help us with advocacy, we had to
prepare issues to share with them and recommendations. At the same time, we had
to have a thorough discussion in very short meetings, in order to have positive
results.

·
Seeing famous human rights activists at the rally and concert was really encouraging.

·
We really do need human rights, now more than ever.

…And the lowlights:

·
95 degree heat and no air-conditioning…or fans.

·
The mosquitoes, which swarmed in whenever you opened a window.

·
The conference center sandwiches.

·
Too many panels, too many interesting people, too little time.