In Vienna we will welcome nearly 900 delegates from 141 countries who received full or partial scholarships to attend AIDS 2010 as part of the International and Media Scholarship Programmes.

The Scholarship Review Committee selected these and other recipients from a pool of more than 11,000 applicants from 179 different countries, looking for those candidates that could best transfer the skills and knowledge gained at AIDS 2010 to the work they do in their organizations and communities. In selecting the scholarship recipients, the committee reviewed the candidates’ answers to questions about their HIV/AIDS work, why they wanted to attend AIDS 2010 and what benefits they would bring back to their organizations and communities.

Scholarship recipients at AIDS 2008.

The backgrounds and motivations of scholarship recipients are very diverse, as exemplified by these comments from a few of those selected:

• An activist from Congo working with religious leaders says, “It is important for us to attend conferences on AIDS to improve our approach to problems linked to HIV and be heard by others on our experience with HIV, especially learning to improve the response in our community.”
• An advocate from the Caribbean Region says, “I live in a very small society which makes it extremely challenging for PLWHAs to disclose their status. I expect that at this international setting, I will encounter more HIV-positive persons open to sharing their concerns/hopes/fears thereby educating persons like me who are passionate about communicating with others the need to create an accepting environment. I also believe that I will become more fully aware of concerns related to HIV/AIDS, build my capacity to advocate for desirable legislation, learn new skills and develop new strategies to help me in my work.” More...

The Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC) endorses the theme Rights Here, Right Now for AIDS 2010.

CVC is a coalition of community leaders and non-governmental agencies providing services directly to and on behalf of Caribbean populations who are especially vulnerable to HIV infection or often forgotten in access to treatment and healthcare programmes. These groups include:

• men who have sex with men
• sex workers
• people who use drugs
• orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV
• migrant populations
• ex-prisoners
• youth in especially difficult circumstances.

Youth in Toco, Trinidad. Credit: UNAIDS/B. Press.

The membership is drawn from the Caribbean and includes people and organizations who work in Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Curaçao, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, the French Caribbean, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia,  St. Vincent, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. More...