Full Document (English) - POLICY Project

16
Advocacy
There has been increasing emphasis on fostering political support and commitment
to HIV issues, in India and across South Asia as well.
In May 2002, the Prime Minister launched an International Policy Makers’
Conference in New Delhi promoted by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative
in collaboration with NACO. The leader of the opposition and Chief Ministers
from three of the six high prevalence states addressed the conference,
demonstrating strong political commitment at the highest levels and across party
lines in support of the HIV vaccine.
In July 2003, what has been dubbed as a global first, India launched a
Parliamentary Forum on AIDS. Elected representatives from the central and state
levels as well as elected heads of municipal bodies and from village gram
panchayats came together to understand, discuss, and reaffirm commitment to
bring HIV/ AIDS centre-stage of the development agenda, and to combat it.
The Parliamentary Forum on AIDS was launched by the Prime Minister, and
addressed by the Leader of the Opposition, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha (Lower
House of Parliament), Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of
Parliament), Deputy Prime Minister, Union Health Minister, and political leaders
across party lines.
Youth and Adolescents
In order to ensure that young people have the appropriate knowledge and skills to
protect themselves, the National AIDS Control Programme has initiated the
following programmes:
A comprehensive School AIDS Education Programme is being implemented to
cover all higher secondary schools across the country in a phased manner. This
programme is conducted by the State AIDS Control Societies either through
NGOs, the Department of Education or a combination of the two. The
programme focuses on (a) raising awareness levels about HIV, (b) helping young
people resist peer pressure to participate in high-risk behaviour, and (c) helping
promote the need for adopting safe and responsible lifestyles like delayed sexual
initiation (abstinence). A special module called “Learning for Life” has been
developed by NACO and distributed to all the states for utilization in the
training of teachers and peer educators. Nearly 50,000 higher secondary schools
have been covered so far.
Students in college and university are addressed through the “Universities Talk
AIDS” (UTA) programme. The Universities Talk AIDS (UTA) project is a
collaborative partnership between the National Service Scheme (NSS),
Department of Youth Affairs and Sports, and NACO. Since its inception in
1991, it is estimated that UTA has reached out to about 8,000 institutions in
176 universities, over 17,000 community leaders, and over 7 million young
people in the country.
Prevention of
HIV/AIDS in Uttar Pradesh