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Imagine being a young person living with HIV in a rural area with limited transport access, good roads, and an urgent need to access adolescent and youth-friendly health services. “Young people in Malawi face the challenge of travelling long distances to reach the facilities where Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) services and HIV counselling are provided,” These are some of the challenges which Deborah Chuma, a youth leader from Malawi, believes that her peers face.

Young people in East and Southern Africa account for 32% of the total population; their voices are a radical and powerful vehicle for change¹. With this energy, 100 youth leaders from across fourteen countries in the region came together from 25-28 April 2023 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The UNITED! Leadership Summit became a safe space for them to showcase the progress of the HIV and Sexual Reproductive Health Rights movement and uplift the voices of young people who are meaningfully engaged in the call to action to end HIV and advocate for SRHR.

Over 100 youth leaders from across fourteen countries in Eastern and Southern Africa linked up in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 25-28 April 2023, for a three-and-a-half day UNITED! Leadership Summit to level up the HIV and Sexual Reproductive Health Rights movement and uplift the voices of young people who are meaningfully engaged in the call to action for HIV and SRHR.

Bold and Coordinated Response to HIV and SRH

The summit called for bold and coordinated action to scale up prevention measures for young people, reduce new infections among key population communities, expand access to antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV, network strengthening, youth leadership and capacity building. This is in response to the overarching crisis that the HIV and SRH rights of adolescents and young people are not being met.

“It's up to my generation to ensure that the issues we are facing right now do not affect the upcoming generation,” said Mateus Kambuze of the United Youth Charity Association in Namibia. “The issues we’ve been tackling are not just issues that come and leave in one day. These are issues that various generations have faced. And if you see that it keeps on going, then you must realise that a system is being used that is not working," he added.

The young leaders from across the region reflected on the challenges and barriers that impede their advocacy and meaningful engagement in country-led discussions. Some of these challenges included access to quality services across the HIV and SRH cascade, youth leadership, stigma, discrimination and violence, economic empowerment or livelihoods, gender-based violence, laws and policies and access to social protection schemes and services.

Leaders of the summit were taken through movement building and levelling up advocacy. To shake up the space, participants agreed on a definition of movement building: bringing people together through a common interest and addressing specific causes, issues and injustices happening on the ground and ways to bring about change. Youth leaders also agreed on principles of meaningful partnership and collaboration, including accountability, negotiation, professionalism, resilience, integrity and intersectionality.

“We can ensure youth have access to accurate sexual and reproductive health services by prioritising their needs and adding young people to decision-making tables in the SRH space,” said Trevor Emojel from Uganda. “Only through this can we have a program for the young people by the young people with the young people.” Through collective action and support for implementation, they can be moved forward.

Building Skills to Foster Change and Accelerate Action

A highlight from the summit included discussions around spaces and platforms where young people can level up their advocacy and where leaders can utilise their skills, talents and platforms to foster change in their communities. Youth leaders are already accessing digital media innovatively, using ’new’ methods of communication like TikTok and Instagram Reels to stimulate conversations around HIV and SRH issues and on sensitive topics like diversity and inclusion, period poverty, sex, protection and consent - as a way to foster openness and breaking the stigma. Digital platforms can be leveraged with new and existing media, adopting new approaches such as engaging with relevant influencers. At the summit, some participants were influencers and used their platforms to lobby, protest, and draft joint position papers, campaigns and dialogues that are both community and politically driven.

Joyce Ouma, Advocacy and Campaigns Officer at Y+ Global says the summit has provided a safe environment for young people to speak openly about their issues. “One thing that we've been able to do as a network, and also I've been able to do at a personal level as a young woman living with HIV from sub-Saharan Africa, is to create a platform for young people to be able to advocate for themselves, a safe space where they can come and talk about their issues. And that's exactly what we are doing in this summit.”

As one of the summit's co-organisers, Teboho Mohloai, an Executive Committee member of AfriYAN, emphasised the importance of collaboration during the summit and the power spaces like these have in leveraging ideas to develop solutions and innovations on issues affecting young people. “AfriYAN works towards ensuring that adolescents and young people are able to access their sexual and reproductive rights while empowering them through capacity-building opportunities and advocacy platforms. The summit was a great opportunity to ensure stronger youth engagement at local, regional and global levels and promote meaningful youth-led accountability.”

The UNITED! Leadership Summit is a joint movement, one united voice, one campaign across fourteen countries that pushes for the strengthened engagement of young people in advocacy. Participants walked away from the three-and-a-half-day summit with clear objectives of expanding the movement and mobilising other youth networks, in all their diversity, to join the cause. It was clear that for young people to succeed, they must be afforded opportunities to enhance cross-network communication and engagement with stakeholders at country, regional and national levels and lead capacity-building initiatives to strengthen youth leadership in the HIV and SRH space. More voices mean more recognition, attention, leverage, engagement, and accountability.




Channel Africa Radio interview links on Young Leader's reflections on HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights:
https://omny.fm/shows/africa-update/young-leaders-gather-in-johannesburg-for-an-hiv-an https://omny.fm/shows/africa-update/reflections-on-hiv-sexual-and-reproductive-health