This month, our educational focus is HIV/AIDS and youth. Children and youth, especially between the ages of 15-24, are particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and comprise almost half of new HIV infections. The educational packet explores the physiological and social factors that contribute to young people’s vulnerability, and includes an interview with Richard Zule-Mbewe, a Malawian Global Health Corps fellow. We’ve also created a one-page fact sheet for you to use during tabling and other events.

Leading our monthly activist call will be Cate Oswald, Partners In Health’s Manager for Psychosocial and Mental Health Support Programs in Haiti. She organizes and runs support groups in Haiti for children infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS, and will speak about her work, career path, and how the earthquake has affected HIV-affected youth in Haiti. Join the call, spread the word, and connect with a truly incredible leader in the public health field!

When: Thursday, March 4th at 3:30pm PST / 6:30pm EST **NEW TIME***

To Join:
1. Dial the U.S. number: 1 (201) 793-9022
2. Enter the conference room number: 2390580 #
3. You will enter the room immediately if the moderator is present or you will be placed on hold for up to 10 minutes.

Click Here to Download the HIV/AIDS and Youth Educational Packet

The spring 2010 campaign is here! Announcing: How Do YOU Wear Your Pin?

Watch the video and get inspired!

Every day, thousands of people around the world wear their FACE AIDS pins to stand in solidarity in the fight against AIDS. The How Do You Wear Your Pin? Campaign celebrates the diversity of our movement by providing chapters with a platform to share what the pin means to their campus and community with the entire FACE AIDS network. By distributing the pin to someone and asking a simple question - “How do YOU wear your pin?” - you can inspire others, build the FACE AIDS movement and save lives.

The campaign will run from March 1 - May 31. During this time, FACE AIDS pins will be distributed around campuses. Get involved by taking various photos of your friends or teammates or teachers wearing the pins and encouraging others to do the same. Then, post your photos on the How Do YOU Wear Your Pin? website, where all the photos taken from other chapters around the world will also be posted.

After you post your photos, vote for your favorites. There are eight categories, and the photos with the most votes will be displayed on the FACE AIDS website when school starts in the fall, and they’ll be on all of the pincards that will be distributed next year! Together, let’s celebrate all the different ways we wear our pins, spread the movement and help save lives. 100% of funds raised from pin sales go to Partners In Health - Rwanda for comprehensive health care.

To help you, we’ve created a How Do YOU Wear Your Pin? Campaign guide. You can download it here. It includes all the info you need about the campaign and the eight categories, and sample templates for flyers, newspaper articles, and letters.

Visit the How Do YOU Wear Your Pin? website and get started!

Hello dear readers,

As you know, the mission of FACE AIDS is to build a global movement of young people dedicated to fighting AIDS in Africa. We are now on over 200 college and high school campuses across the U.S., and work with about 700 youth in chapters in eastern Rwanda.

Strong student leaders are at the core of FACE AIDS, and as we continue to grow as a community, we want to better integrate outstanding campus leaders into our national leadership.

To accomplish this, we are thrilled to announce the creation of the FACE AIDS Steering Committee. The Steering Committee will bring together 6 to 8 student leaders from across the U.S. and will be charged with designing and overseeing FACE AIDS’ annual national campaigns. The Steering Committee will work closely with the FACE AIDS national staff, and will receive regular briefings on FACE AIDS operational and program developments to inform their decisions.

This is an exciting development for us as an organization and community, and an exciting opportunity for student leaders to shape the future of this movement, develop close relationships with incredible peers, and gain valuable leadership experience and professional skills.

The 2010-11 Steering Committee will run from May 2010 to April 2011. Members will meet together approximately four times (almost always at Stanford), as well as collaborate through monthly conference calls. All travel and housing will be paid for by FACE AIDS.

Interested? Great! Applications for the Steering Committee are open now and due on March 12th, 2010. Visit jobs.faceaids.org to apply. If you have any questions, please email Executive Director Julie Veroff at julie@faceaids.org.

Hi everyone!

This is Claire again, writing from Rwanda.  I want to thank all of our contributers from the FACE AIDS visit for their amazing posts on their experiences from their time spent in Rwanda over the holidays.  For me, it was so exciting to see our Rwandan and American chapter members come together to discuss FACE AIDS and how to build a truly global youth movement against HIV/AIDS.  The mix of Americans and Rwandans, all dedicated to fight AIDS, made for a pretty incredible 2009 Youth Forum!

I’m also excited to give you a more complete update on our programs here in Rwanda:

Rwanda Program Update

Read it to learn more about the FACE AIDS visit to Rwanda, our Rwandan FACE AIDS chapter activities, and the 2009 Youth Leadership Forum!

On our last day in Rwanda, we spent the afternoon at Lake Muhazi, reflecting on our experiences and making plans for how we would bring what we learned back to our chapters and FACE AIDS as an organization. We went around the circle and each shared our personal highlight of the trip, a challenge we faced, and a lingering question. We’ve each written these down to now share with you.

Final Thoughts: Our Highlights, Challenges, and Lingering Questions

Austin Keeley, Stanford University

Highlight: The highlight of the trip for me was our time at the PIH hospital in Rwinkwavu. After having read so much about the work that PIH does and the vast health problems in Rwanda, I was blown away to actually witness first-hand how PIH was working to provide a preferential health option for the poor. To meet the men and women who turned theory into practice was an inspiring moment for me.

Challenge: My biggest challenge during the trip was my own perceived lack of purpose. A question I’ve faced a lot during my time with FACE AIDS is, “Well, are you ever going to go to Africa?” My response was always that I would love to go, but only if I had a defined role in which I could actively give of myself to others. Foreign public service can all too often a self-gratifying experience in which you feel good about having gone, but did not necessarily do any good. During our time in Rwanda I felt torn. On the one hand the educational and emotional growth I was experiencing was truly gut-wrenching and inspiring, but on the other hand, I often felt like a burden to our hosts and felt incapable of doing anything to alleviate the suffering I saw. The only way I could reconcile these emotions was to swear that I would re-double my efforts back home so that what I learned- intellectually and emotionally- would be translated into tangible results.

Question: After this trip I want to know how FACE AIDS can better engage and mobilize students in Rwanda. The amount of passion and enthusiasm that we saw at the Youth Forum and around the country was inspiring. It seems to me that secondary school students and recent graduates have a huge potential to work and fight AIDS in their local communities. Education spread by grass roots means could be a huge force in the country’s fight against HIV/AIDS.

Lila Kalaf, Stanford University

Highlight: If I had to pick one highlight of the trip, which is nearly impossible, it would be the youth forum. There is nothing more special than hearing the experiences of students our age, half way across the world, and hearing all the similarities.

Challenge: I struggle with learning how to integrate my limited knowledge and experience with the genocide and tumultuous Rwandan history into our programs in Rwanda.

Question: I want to further explore how we can better articulate and shape our purpose in Rwanda, and how that translates into our actions back home.

Steven Ma, Oregon State University

Highlight: The highlight of the trip for me was learning about PIH’s presence in Rwanda - along with GHC, FACE AIDS, social workers, and a cooperative government as ingredients for social change. This gave me hope despite the challenges we face and the socioeconomic disparities I witnessed in the country.

Challenge: My greatest challenge was the language barrier and lack of experience as obstacles to fully understanding the significance of what I was experiencing. Without language, I felt that I mostly had to rely on instinct and intuition to give meaning to the various new situations in a drastically different environment - which is quite inaccurate!

Question: The underlying question I could not find an answer to throughout the entire trip was: what exactly is our responsibility in dealing with global poverty? I was greatly affected by the images of poverty on this trip, but also happy to see the differences PIH, FACE AIDS and other global health/social justice organizations have made. As a result, I feel that this issue of poverty and its subsequent effects on health warrant more study and I look forward to not only learning more about but also contributing to global health in the near future.

Amanda Dalessio, University of Texas Austin

Highlight: The highlight of the trip for me was meeting the pin makers of Rwandarera! It gave so much more meaning to pin selling. The time we spent with the Rwandarera community was so inspiring. Walking through the field of cassava was also an incredible experience. Marie and the community were so welcoming to us, people they had never met before. It was incredible. Turning around and looking behind me and seeing all 10 of us and the whole pin making association smiling and laughing is a memory that I will hold in my heart forever.

Challenge: A challenge I faced on the trip I believe will not affect me until I get back home to UT Austin (and with my FACE AIDS chapter): It will be difficult to convey the exact feelings I felt 3 weeks earlier. I want to translate every thought and feeling I had to my fellow chapter members in a way that makes them understand and see the whole picture. I believe that our blogs and pictures will help our fellow chapter members be apart of the wonderful adventure we all took part in this Christmas season.

Question: I will never understand why genocides occur. How can people kill innocent human beings? I will never in my life forget the things I saw this trip. I also believe that being made aware of something so significant changes your life, and forces you to be aware of how easy “the good” can change into “evil”. Living with that thought will also be challenging and take part in decisions I make in my everyday life.

Kathrina Chen, University of Connecticut

Highlight: The highlight of the trip for me was participating in the AIDS Walk with the Rwandan FACE AIDS members. By being involved in the walk I felt more a part of the movement both in the USA and Rwanda.

Challenge: My challenges from this trip are trying to understand what could have caused the extreme hate that fueled the genocide. I am not only unable to understand why so many people were killed, but I also struggle to understand why they were killed in the gruesome ways.

Question: How will I share the knowledge learned in Rwanda with my chapter and school? How can UConn contribute to programs in Rwanda that need assistance and how will I make the students at my school aware of this need?

John Thomas, Stanford University

Highlight: My highlight was meeting with all of the people that FACE AIDS works with - from the pinmaker Marie, to John and Francois, the FACE AIDS Program Assistans, to Alice the PIH head social worker, all the way up to the Country Director for PIH, Peter Drobac. Hearing everyone’s stories and what makes them passionate about the work they do was truly inspiring.

Challenge: Trying to understand the work of FACE AIDS to fight for health and social justice in the unique context of Rwanda and its history is a consistent challenge.

Question: How best can students, who often are limited in their skills and experience but not in enthusiasm and optimism, make a meaningful difference?

Anne Stake, Stanford University

Highlight: There were so many highlights of the trip that it’s hard to describe only one. Throughout the trip the interactions that we had with the Rwandan people were always the most exciting for me. For instance, the march at the conference with the students was incredible. The meal at the home-stays was also a highlight.

Challenge: Both genocide memorials were incredibly difficult for me to process and experience. I’m not sure whether or not I will ever understand or fully grasp the reason or the implications of the events that took place. I am struggling with how to harness my outrage and confusion in the wake of both experiences and focus on what I can at this moment or in the future.

Question: Personally: I have re-discovered my commitment to working in global health, or at least in development, and I have to find out how I can best contribute and to what field. For FACEAIDS: How can we actually connect the US/Africa programs? Is there anything that FACEAIDS can do to expand the school fees program or to help students like those we met at the conference to go to school? If the pin-sales are the limiting factor on the US side, would another product like necklaces be easier for chapters to sell?

Julie Veroff, FACE AIDS Executive Director

Highlight: The whole trip was the highlight of my time thus far with FACE AIDS, since it united everything I love and admire most about this organization: FACE AIDS chapter members around the world - dedicated, thoughtful, ambitious young leaders who reject the notion that one’s community is limited by geographic borders and fight every day for global health equity and social justice; FACE AIDS’ Rwanda programs – locally-driven initiatives that are beautiful in their simplicity and staggering in their impact; and support to Partners In Health and comprehensive health care – the real, demonstrated, short- and long-term change that comes from giving a preferential option for the poor. This trip drove home for me the message that young people can, have, and must continue to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa, particularly through movement-building and direct action.

Challenge: When we were touring the genocide memorial at the church in Nyarabuye, a girls’ choir was singing hymns in the background. How do we continue to have faith – in a higher power, in the human spirit, in the notion of goodness, in anything – in the wake of such violence and injustice? And also, how could be afford to not continue to have faith?

Question: What is FACE AIDS’ core competency, both in Rwanda and in general? How do we continue to strengthen and grow the programs we’ve developed with an eye towards cohesion throughout the model and genuine community-building across campuses and international borders?

Braden Lake, Stanford University

Highlight: Touring the Partners in Health and seeing the tremendous potential of care that is granted, without exclusion, to everyone who comes for service was incredibly inspiring.

Challenge: I was challenged by wanting to give back as much as I was receiving during this trip. I knew I was incredibly lucky to partake in such a trip and was getting so much out of it personally, and I just wanted some way of ensuring that those I was visiting were benefitting as well in some way.

Question: Conceptualizing the genocide, and figuring out how I can integrate it into my world view for the future, is something that I am still struggling with.

Romy Saloner, FACE AIDS Managing Director

Highlight: For me, the most moving part of the trip was having dinner at Marie’s house. Marie is a member of Rwandarera, one of our partner HIV associations. She welcomed us all into her house and prepared an amazing dinner for us. It was such a special meal, sitting in a room full of people who have been part of FACE AIDS in different ways-Pinmakers, US Chapter Leaders and Members, National Directors and US and Rwanda Staff. I felt like FACE AIDS really came together for me at that moment, and I was honored and proud to be part of such an amazing organization and community.

Challenge: I love working for FACE AIDS and value every day that I get to spend with the organization. However, the trip reminded me of the importance of field work and my desire to spend time addressing HIV issues in East Africa. I hope to return soon and I need to make that a priority and focus on creating a plan.

Question: After having the opportunity to engage more closely with the FACE AIDS programs in Rwanda, I feel like I have a much clearer understanding of what we do, but also many more questions about the future of our organization. The trip prompted me to think more about how our programs in Rwanda can and should relate to our programs in America, and what that means for the future.

The whole team with Rwandarera

Day 10: December 28

By Romy Saloner, FACE AIDS Managing Director

We woke up to a beautiful day in Kirehe and began it with a morning hike. We all walked down the main road and then turned down a dirt path through a village. We walked down a hill to the well where children and women were gathering water for the day. On the way back up we moved slowly while we were passed by people carrying buckets of water to their homes. It was quite a hike, and to imagine doing it every day while carrying water made us all feel exhausted.

Anti-malaria billboard we passed as we began our hike

The scenery was incredibly beautiful.

John, Kathrina, and Lila

We ended the hike back at Claire’s house and met up with Elyse, the Partners In Health Head Social Worker in Kirehe. She spoke with us about the School Fees Program that the FACE AIDS Back to School Campaign benefits. The program began in 2006 with 60 students in Kirehe, all of whom are either infected or affected by HIV. The program not only provides students with financial support for schooling, but also loops them into a variety of social support programs with PIH. Unfortunately, due to increasing school fees, PIH has not been able to bring any new students into the program since 2007. However, of those who are lucky enough to be enrolled in the School Fees Program, 22 have already graduated from secondary school and six have gone on to university. Elyse also told us about her personal history and how she ended up working with PIH. She wowed us with her passion for the work and her deep desire to help vulnerable members of her community in Kirehe.

After our meeting with Elyse, we got in the car and started on our way to Lake Muhazi for a final group discussion. Along the way, we stopped at a small restaurant and ate beans, rice and meat under the overhang barely protected from the pouring rain. When we arrived at Lake Muhazi an hour later, the sky had cleared, and we sat a table overlooking the lake and birds. For hours we spoke about what the trip had meant to each of us and how we plan to bring our experiences back home. Everyone had been deeply moved by different aspects of the trip whether it was the dinner at Marie’s house with Rwandarera or the genocide museum in Kigali. No matter what part of the trip each person identified as significant, everyone agreed that there are many ways to share our experiences with our friends, families, communities and FACE AIDS chapters. Some people will be holding events on their campuses and for their chapters, others will be creating slideshows and powerpoint presentations for FACE AIDS, and many will be working together to teach a class on Rwanda and HIV at Stanford in the spring.

Just before it started to get dark, we got back in the car and drove into Kigali. We shared an amazing closing dinner and spent the night talking and laughing before we all had to get up early in the morning and board the flight back to the USA.

We’re Hiring Summer Directors!

Are you a leader and changemaker? Take the next step in the youth movement to fight AIDS and promote global health equity: work with us this summer and help inspire thousands of young people around the world!

We’re looking for:

• 2 Programming Directors to assist in the development of programs, campaigns, and chapter support resources; conduct relevant research; and lead the production of associated toolkits and materials for chapters.
• 1 Camp Kwizera Director and 4 counselors to lead FACE AIDS’ summer camp for middle school students, focused on engaging them in global social justice education and local community service
• 1 Global Health Corps Summer Program Intern to help build and implement the two-week Global Health Corps training and orientation, the cornerstone of GHC’s fellowship program.

Interested? Check out jobs.faceaids.org to learn more andapply. Deadline is February 19th.

Work with FACE AIDS Full Time in Rwanda!

Through the Global Health Corps, FACE AIDS is hiring two Rwanda Program Directors, who will work full-time in Rwanda from August 2010 to August 2011.

The Program Directors will devote the majority of their time to managing, strengthening, and growing FACE AIDS’ two program areas: youth mobilization, and structured savings and business development. Each fellow will take the lead on one of these areas. In addition, both fellows will spend some time strengthening the overall capacity of FACE AIDS’ and PIH’s programs by working in partnership with the Chief Operations Officer of Partners In Health Rwanda on management, coordination, administration, and special projects, focused on PIH’s program on social and economic rights.

To learn more about the opportunity and apply, visit http://apply.ghcorps.org. Applications due March 1st for US citizens and April 1st for Rwandan citizens.

There are also 14 other fellowship opportunities through Global Health Corps, based in the US, Rwanda, Burundi, and Malawi. Jobs range from computer science to monitoring and evaluation to health counseling. GHC fellows receive full funding, in addition to mentorship, training, and community support. Apply today!

As part of FACE AIDS’ monthly education series, February is focused on food security.

Food security is a significant factor in understanding and addressing the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. Research has shown that food insecurity and inadequate nutrition significantly reduce the effectiveness of anti-retroviral treatment programs, because, like any medical treatment, ARV treatment requires a diverse and stable diet in order to remain effective. As organizations such as Partners In Health and FACE AIDS have recognized, successful HIV/AIDS interventions require solutions to issues of food insecurity, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa where food insecurity and HIV/AIDS coexist in many vulnerable populations.

Check out the education packet to learn more about food security and its relationship to HIV/AIDS, the politics of food aid, and innovative programs on the ground in sub-Saharan Africa.

We also have a great fact sheet you can use for tabling, emailing, etc..

Thanks! Let us know if you have comments on the materials. We’d love to hear how you’re using them!

Day 9: December 27

By Kathrina Chen, University of Connecticut

Today, I woke up early after a night of singing, dancing, and shadow puppets, in which two other FACE AIDSers and I along with our host family and a number of neighbors participated. As the other two girls slept I went outside and was warmly welcomed by Omar (our host) his family and neighbors. After we ate breakfast, we went for a walk around the village and stopped by the home stay of the other two girls on the trip. Later we set out to Nyarubuye from our Kihere home stay and visited the Nyarubuye Church genocide memorial. There we toured the church in which approximately 37,000 people were murdered and over 50,000 bodies total were stored. During the tour we saw clothing that was removed from the victims, their bones, and the weapons that were used to kill them. One thing that struck me was the ceremonial manner in which the victims were killed. Some of the victims’ hearts were ground in meat grinders and a genocidaire nicknamed Simba baked and ate his victims’ hearts.

Shoes gathered from the victims murdered at Nyarabuye

Skulls of the victims

Mass graves at Nyarabuye

The church at Nyarabuye is still used. While we toured the genocide memorial, we heard the church choir singing joyfully in the background.

Later that afternoon we visited the homes of members of the Girimpuhwe Cooperative, one of FACE AIDS’ partners in the pin-making, structured savings, and business training program. The members use savings generated through their employment with FACE AIDS to launch small businesses, providing a source of income through sewing, farming, and other activities. I remembered the story of one of the members. She and her brothers were orphaned and she worked hard to support them and send them to school. Currently she is a seamstress. She makes clothing for women as a source of income. I found her story so interesting because it shows how a strong will can enable you to achieve.