HIV has a high impact on the daily lives of young people. It affects their education, job prospects and relationships. Adolescents are often going through the emotional changes of growing up – they push boundaries and take more risks. Sometimes healthcare services are not youth-friendly, and so we need to empower this population to build a solid future.

The data strongly support the need for more effective means of reaching young people – individuals aged 15-24 account for 40 per cent of all new HIV infections (UNAIDS 2009) and only 34 per cent of young people have comprehensive and correct knowledge about HIV (UNAIDS 2010 Global Report).

We firmly believe that youth-led organisations are best suited to effectively reach other young people in their communities – they have unbridled passion and they know their audience and how to reach it in ways that will resonate. What they don’t always have are the resources or organisational skills training to thrive and grow – that's where our partnership with Positive Action comes in.

Working with Positive Action, we’re in the midst of a four-year programme of training, development and capacity building for youth-focused organisations and their young leaders in all parts of the world. This training and development programme is designed to make our grantees’ HIV projects more effective, to build stronger and more sustainable organisations, and to develop and promote young people as the leaders of the future community response to HIV and AIDS.

Specifically, this capacity-building programme is organised as follows:

• Year One: Residential training courses, conducted by Restless Development, that provide participants with skills in organisational strategy and planning, fundraising, monitoring and evaluation, finance management, and media and marketing. This phase of the training is aimed at strengthening the core capabilities of each individual and each organisation. Hear what grantees had to say about their experience at the London capacity-building workshop, October 2010.
• Year Two: E-courses, conducted by the Global Youth Coalition on HIV and AIDS, to refine and enhance skills in areas such as advocacy, project management and fundraising.
• Years Three and Four:
  
  • International grantee exchanges, during which grantees visit other more established youth-led organisations across the globe and then bring what they learn back home to be applied as appropriate to their own community efforts.
  • Work placements during which grantees are expected to learn and understand better how other organisations and companies operate within their country. They will actively learn ‘best practices’ and also contribute a young person’s perspective to the organisation/company they will work with. At the end of the experience it is expected that the grantee will be able to transfer some of the skills learned to his or her own organisation.
• In addition, we have created a private social network, Staying Alive Connected, designed to help our grantees connect and share ideas from anywhere in the world. Each organisation gets its own public web page, enabling young leaders to show the valuable work they do to a wider audience, and post updates on their projects’ progress. It’s designed to be easy to use and accessible to people with limited internet access or low bandwidth and poor connectivity. It’s also an online forum where young leaders can help and inspire each other by sharing their experiences, expertise and resources. As more and more young leaders get involved, and Staying Alive Connected expands, the wealth of shared knowledge continues to grow.