Report - Sida Studi

Appendix 3: The three daily newsletters
pants who showed their younger colleagues a few nifty
and silky moves as they strutted their stuff to the lively
Latin and African beats.
Closing the conference
Sunday was taken up with the closing session of the conference.
In an emotional closing session we heard from
our most honoured guest, Mr Bernardo Sousa, representative
of the Portuguese High Commission for Migration
and Ethnic Minorities in Portugal, from Paulo Nossa of
the conference preparatory committee, Jumoke Vreden
from the Safe Sex Comedy Show, Simon Forrest, general
rapporteur for the meeting, Edwin Goossens Vaerewyck
summing up on behalf on the interpreters working on
the conference and a rousing ‘sermon’ from the Safe Sex
Comedy Show before closing with a distribution of gifts
for all the contributors as chairpersons, presenters, plenary
panel members, facilitators, rapporteurs, interpreters
and organisers.
‘A minute’s silence’
Emotions were already running high after long, hot and
emotionally draining work over the previous two days
and we were all touched still further by the opening of
this last session of the conference with a short video
presentation, to the strains of ‘A minute’s silence’ by
the Beautiful South honouring the memory of all those
people lost to HIV/AIDS. A salutary reminder of the cost
the epidemic counted in human lives and the purpose
around which the conference convened.
Presentations
Mr Bernardo Sousa took the podium to challenge us to
use the learning and experiences acquired in our conference
to enrich our work. He pleaded with us to hold on
to all the innovative ideas we have been exposed to and
to apply them in HIV/AIDS prevention and working
towards societies in which migrant, young people and
positive people are fully integrated and respected.
Next, Paulo Nossa reminded us that access to HIV/AIDS
prevention, treatment and care has been a human rights
issue for more than decade. More than a medical problem,
mounting an effective response to the epidemic remains a
question of proper adherence and commitment to achieving
basic equalities by imposing existing human rights legislation
and agreements properly and challenging breaches
wherever they occur. He challenged us to recognise that
sexual and reproductive health services are not culturally
competent and that aid is too often based on charity rather
than human rights. He hoped that Portugal’s good record
on offering free access to treatment and care to people who
are often without documentation continues but reminded
us that here, as in other countries, this depends on continued
vigilance against existing and emerging structural and
social barriers.
One of the youngsters at the conference, Jumoke Vreden,
spoke briefly giving us a constructively critical viewpoint
on improving the focus of future conferences. She suggested
that we ensure robust planning and ensure that
presentations and workshops are closely focused on questions
of, ‘what we know; what we need to know and what
we need to do as a consequence’. She suggested that networking
and information exchange could be expedited
by asking all participants to the meeting to compose a
presentation comprising three slides which described
who they are, their work and the problems that they face
in undertaking it. She left us with a clear instruction to
ask ourselves in the context of this conference and future
meetings to think always; ‘What were the questions, what
were the solutions, what has to be addressed next time?’
After a few words from Simon Forrest on his impressions
of the conference, Edwin Goossens Vaerewyck addressed
the session. He noted that we are all someone else’s ‘other’
because we have a different skin, hold different philosophies
or adhere to a different religion, but we are all
human beings, worthy of respect and dignity. He asked
that people leave the conference thinking about how we
treat our ‘others’ and concluded by inviting us not to be
silent in memory of those taken from us by AIDS but,
since ‘silence is death and life is action’, to make a noise.
A ‘sermon’
The formal part of the conference closed with another
contribution from the Safe Sex Comedy Show. Donning
choristers’ outfits they invited us all to join them in a
final lively ‘sermon’ on safe sex. To the strains of ‘Preacher
man’ we all waved torches in the air and proclaimed that
we ‘had seen the light’ in relation to condom use.
Gifts
The meeting closed with Kathelijne de Groot making
presentations of gifts to all the contributors to the conference
– the chairpersons, presenters, plenary panel
members, facilitators, rapporteurs, performers, volunteers,
interpreters and organisers; bringing them all on to the
stage, to emphasise that we can only organise these kind
of meetings with the help of all the people that actually
work with the communities.
What happens next?
Now the conference is over the work goes on. For our
part that means preparing the report on the meeting and
working with the network to support the implementation
of ideas and plans arising from and stimulated by the
conference. Please if you have any presentations or notes
that you think would help us to do this, send them to us
at the AIDS & Mobility staff!
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