News & storiesSpeaking to my fellow young mother, I’m not talking on behalf of someone
News & storiesSpeaking to my fellow young mother, I’m not talking on behalf of someone
Speaking to my fellow young mother, I’m not talking on behalf of someone
Last updated on: 12 March 2024
“Speaking to my fellow young mother, I’m not talking on behalf of someone”. Miriam Hasasha is Young Mother’s Ambassador at the Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS (CCABA). She supports young mothers with HIV to stay in care. As a young mother herself, she stresses the importance of projects being community-based to best support young mothers, and speaks out on being a role model for other girls. Meet Miriam!
“It is important for projects supporting young mothers to be community-based because in the community, we know who we are dealing with. We know the kind of people that we are relating with because if I’m a young mother speaking to my fellow young mother, I’m sure it will be a good experience because I’m talking for myself, I’m not talking on behalf of someone. So it is better to be peer to peer mentorship.
It is important to support young mothers living with HIV with their children to stay healthy because it is the most vulnerable group of people, young people, young girls need support from health workers during that time of antenatal services, so if it is the period to keep them with hope, without discrimination from hospitals and all public places.
What I’m proud of in my role as a young mother’s ambassador, it’s because that many people are coping up, many young mothers the way I talk to them. Personally, I give myself hope to go back to school. So if I share my story with other young girls out there, they are proud of who I am because they are seeing me progressing, winning awards. And I mean to the society of young mothers helping them out. So they be like if this one did it, why can’t I do this, meaning they are giving me more hope because I also give them hope through my mentorship.”
New UNAIDS report: Key populations continue to be neglected in most HIV programmes
New UNAIDS report: Key populations continue to be neglected in most HIV programmes
Figures from the new UNAIDS report ‘The Urgency of Now – AIDS at a Crossroads’, published prior to the 25th International AIDS Conference taking place in Germany this week, show that the AIDS response is making little progress globally. For the first time in the history of the HIV pandemic, more new infections are occurring outside sub-Saharan Africa than within. Three regions are experiencing rising numbers of new HIV infections: Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa. People from key populations and their sex partners continue to be neglected in most HIV programmes.
Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Empowering Diversity and Youth Participation in Indonesia
Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Empowering Diversity and Youth Participation in Indonesia
The impact of barriers experienced by young people with diverse gender and sexuality backgrounds in Indonesia emerges in the context of issues of human rights fulfillment and meaningful engagement in health and legal services. Discriminatory regulations and inhospitable services for young people of diverse genders and sexualities place them in a more vulnerable position to higher HIV infection rates, and criminalisation.