If I kept it to myself - World YWCA

Young women intervene in a world with AIDS
Foreword
Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro, General Secretary, World YWCA
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Junior once wrote that ‘THE ULTIMATE MEASURE OF HUMANITY
IS NOT WHERE IT STANDS IN THE TIME OF COMFORT BUT WHERE IT STANDS IN THE TIME
OF CHALLENGE, CRISIS AND TRAGEDY’.
Humankind has failed to adequately address the gross social and gender inequities that continue to
divide us. It is in times like these that not only our kindness and compassion are on trial but our basic
viability as a species.
Despite hardship and challenges, women around the globe are at the forefront of interventions and are
changing the course of the HIV and AIDS pandemic through hard work and unwavering commitment.
Driven by their strength, some young women living with HIV have dedicated their lives to improving the
status of people living with HIV and AIDS in their communities and countries.
All YWCA programmes empower women and girls. Being independent and having a voice enables
them to take responsibility for their own lives and to provide leadership in response to HIV and AIDS.
The current statistics on the HIV pandemic and the fact that women, especially young women and
girls, are disproportionately affected by poverty and HIV and AIDS, were a wake-up call for the YWCA.
Since the early 1990s HIV and AIDS have been a priority in many YWCAs. With sexual and
reproductive health and HIV and AIDS programmes now operating in over 60 countries, health
programmes and community education strategies have been adapted to bring HIV and AIDS to the
forefront of YWCA advocacy work at all levels. The World YWCA Global Strategy on HIV and AIDS
provides the framework for these activities.
Our overall goal of educating women and girls around the world on HIV prevention methods and
offering skills and tools to women already infected with HIV promote their lives to be healthier, longer
and more productive. The YWCA believes that by providing safe places for open discussion around
sex and sexuality, we contribute towards women in particular and people in general to regard HIV
as a virus that we are all learning to live with, rather than seeing it as a punishment based on moral
judgements.
Much has been done but there is still a long way to go. Our focus must therefore remain unshakable,
and it is thanks to the relentless efforts of women such as the ones in this book, that the candle of
hope continues to burn.
Through this publication, the World YWCA and its partners highlight and honour these women leaders
of the world. Whether they are care-givers, heads of households, peer supporters, educators, founders
of organisations or ambassadors of hope, they have done all of this without asking for any reward
and most of them in the face of great adversity. Through hard work they are making changes and
alleviating the pain of women and girls infected and affected by HIV and AIDS and their communities
across the globe.
The World YWCA is a founding member of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS. As a member
of the Leadership Council of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, I wish to acknowledge their
support in publishing this book.
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