Summit Focuses on AIDS

Over 200 students filled a Science Center lecture hall Saturday to listen to AIDS activist Jonathan Perry give his personal life story as the keynote speech of the first Unite Against AIDS summit.

Organized by the Black Men’s Forum, Harvard AIDS Coalition (HAC), Harvard African Students’ Association, and Harvard Concert Commission, the two-day event—including a hip-hop concert, a day-long conference, and a youth gala—was entirely student-run.

The summit’s mission was “Education, Inspiration and Action.”

“Universities seem to have lost a lot of energy about HIV issues,” said Drew E. Altman, president and chief executive officer of the Kaiser Foundation, a member of the summit’s advisory board and a speaker at the Plenary Session of the conference. “It’s great for Harvard that there’s a student-driven conference.”

The conference brought together prominent figures from all over the world to speak about various aspects of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Six panels addressed a range of topics from AIDS and international security to women’s empowerment vis-à-vis the AIDS crisis.

Panelists included activists and scholars prominent in HIV/AIDS advocacy, three of whom were invited directly from South Africa specifically for the conference.

“The panelists were particularly insightful, educating students while engaging them in a dialogue,” said Sarah R. Heilbronner ’07, one of the co-directors of the conference.

“It was a powerful combination of experts talking about the crisis and others talking about the pandemic as it affected their own lives,” said Yusuf W. Randera-Rees ’05, another co-director.

Nondumiso T. Qwabe, a freshman at Middlebury College and an international student from Swaziland, said the speakers “enabled the audience to put a face to the statistics.”

Perry, an outspoken AIDS activist who is HIV-positive and openly gay and who was recently featured on Oprah Winfrey’s television show, captivated the audience with his frank recounting of his experience. He described being angry and depressed upon discovering that his partner had passed the virus to him—while aware of his own HIV-positive status.

Perry confided to the audience that he had unprotected sex after discovering his disease, which made some in the audience uncomfortable, according to Randera-Rees.

“I feel privileged to be a part of a Harvard first,” Perry said. He added, however, that he was disappointed at the audience’s response after he asked how many people had had unprotected sex. Four people tentatively raised their hands.

“I think I had a room with a lot of liars, which was discouraging,” Perry said. “[They] can’t step up and take responsibility for [their] own sexual behavior.”

Perry receiving a standing ovation from the audience upon being presented with the “Unite Against AIDS Inspiration Award” from the organizing committee.

The audience also applauded AIDS activist Sibulele Sibaca when she spoke in a panel on the orphan crisis in Africa about having lost both of her parents to AIDS.

The speakers and organizers of the conference repeatedly emphasized their call for action from students.

The conference included an “AIDS Advocacy 101” seminar which aimed to teach students specific advocacy tactics and allowed them to put their lessons into action by acting out a lobbying scene.

“It’s not about empathy, but about ownership,” said Randera-Rees in the opening session of the conference. Citing statistics that over 13 million of the 40 million AIDS victims worldwide are under 25 years of age, the organizers called the pandemic “a crisis of our generation.”

“The most efficient way to get to young people is through other young people,” Altman said, emphasizing the importance of youth activism.

Qwabe said the conference motivated her to take action against AIDS when she goes home to Swaziland this summer. She said the conference made her realize “I can, as a young person, do something.”

Entitled “HIV/AIDS in Africa and the African Diaspora,” the conference addressed the disproportionate effect of the AIDS crisis on the African and African American population.

“We wanted to call to the black youth, saying ‘hey, look what’s happening to your community,’” said Sarika P. Bansal ’06, a co-director of the conference and former president of HAC.

“How would the world react if 8,000 Harvard students were dying, if AIDS was the number one cause of death among white people? The silence of the politicians sends a clear message,” said Jack P. McCambridge ’06 in his introduction of the keynote speaker.

The organizers of the conference, who have now made Unite Against Aids into a permanent organization, hope to continue the energy generated by the conference. The summit will likely happen again in two years, Heilbronner said.

—Staff writer Victoria Kim can be reached at vkim@fas.harvard.edu.