UNICEF's Bellamy talks with CU group fighting HIV/AIDS

Carol Bellamy, right, executive director of UNICEF, speaks with freshman Sabeen Virani following Bellamy's Bartels lecture in Statler Auditorium, March 4. Earlier in the day, Bellamy spoke with members of the Cornell "Right to Know" (RTK) working group. Robert Barker/University Photography

By Susan Lang

The number of young adults infected with HIV/AIDS -- almost 12 million around the world -- is staggering as are the numbers of AIDS orphans (11 million) which will double by 2010. So said Carol Bellamy, executive director of UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) and Cornell's 2002 Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels World Affairs Fellow, to a group of Cornell students, faculty and staff on Monday afternoon, March 4. She delivered the Bartels lecture that evening in the Statler Auditorium.

The afternoon meeting that Bellamy addressed was of the Cornell "Right to Know" (RTK) working group, which was formed this spring to assist UNICEF's international project, "What Every Adolescent Has a Right to Know" in planning and conducting participatory action research (PAR) with youth. The Cornell group, composed so far of about 50 volunteers from around campus, includes many members of the Cornell Participatory Action Research Network (CPARN) and of the Cornell HIV/AIDS Education Project. The group is working with 14 countries to help UNICEF identify the best ways to "package" HIV protection messages, to improve programs and policies, and to include youth groups and young people in the process. The hope is to give adolescents the life skills required to reduce their vulnerability to HIV infection and to respond to the varied causes and consequences of the epidemic.

The project is based on the premise that young people (whether or not they are HIV positive) have the right to participate in decisions that affect them, to know the basic facts on HIV/AIDS and how to protect themselves from HIV, and to get emotional and psychological support related to HIV/AIDS.

"In the last three years, finally, the conspiracy of silence about HIV/AIDS is beginning to break around the world but not everywhere," said Bellamy, who noted that HIV/AIDS is a UNICEF priority because of its potential to destabilize entire societies. But just what is "participatory action research," she asked the Cornell RTK working group, and how will it make a difference on the country level?

As the 25 working group members explained their approach to Bellamy, David Pelletier, director and principal investigator of the Cornell RTK Project and professor of nutrition policy, explained that PAR addresses social problems within their local contexts, unlike much social science research that is acontextual. In this case, the PAR approach will involve youth groups in each country in the planning and implementation process.

"We want to find ways that bring youth to the table," Pelletier said, pointing out that when young people are involved in the planning, they are much more invested in the project and help get the word out to peers.

Jennifer Tiffany, the project director for the Cornell RTK Project and director of the Cornell Parent HIV/AIDS Education Project, explained that the effort will build on Cornell's very successful program for parents and guardians, "Talking with Kids about HIV/AIDS," that has been implemented throughout New York state, replicated in Mexico City and used in various ways in 70 countries.

The role for the Cornell group is to develop a flexible PAR protocol that each of the participating countries, which include Haiti, Ghana, Niger, Macedonia, Zambia, India, Malawi and Thailand, among others, can adapt to their local needs.

Keiko Goto, a graduate student from Japan in international nutrition, said that when she visited Tanzania for two months, she became increasingly interested in how the PAR approach could influence girls to negotiate with their partners. "Also, PAR allows youths to see themselves as peer educators so they not only get information but give information to others."

Sue-Ann Foster, a senior from Barbados majoring in anthropology, said she spent a semester last year in South Africa. "I was shocked at how uninformed I had been and decided I wanted to be part of the educational process."

Foster is helping to write the introduction to the Right to Know protocol document being developed by the Cornell working group.

By 2005, the group hopes to have developed resources supporting a global initiative on mobilizing youth against HIV/AIDS in at least 25 countries.

Bellamy has been serving as the executive director of UNICEF since 1995. Prior to that, she was the director of the U.S. Peace Corps, served five years in the New York State Senate (1973-1977) and in 1978, became the first woman president of the New York City Council, a position she held until 1985.