Name:Zahra Benyahia
Age:24
Country: Algeria
You made me know who I
am…
The International AIDS
Day, the prevention session, some good talks with great activists calling for
youth leadership combined to my devoted love for human rights. Yes! This is
just how I met my aim in life.
In 2008, after attending
my first conference on HIV and AIDS, I realized that what I wanted to do with
my life, is going beyond my formal clothing and perfect smile of the hotel
manager I used to be.
The next day, late in
the afternoon, I knocked the door of an NGO called AIDS Algérie: Hello, I am
willing to dedicate my time and everything I’ve got to contribute to the fight
against AIDS.
For me, this was the
most remarkable step toward true happiness and active citizenship.
My journey in the AIDS
response started providing peer education among university students. For me, field
work and outreach programs contribute to the creation of a direct impact on the
target population and implant effective communication between peers for positive
change in behavior, access to information and its assimilation as well as
orientation to health facilities and counseling.
My experience as a
Y-PEERian helped to build my communication skills. The support of the NGOs: Aids and El Hayet guided
me to identify clear roles for me as a young activist in the support to key
populations as well as to people living with HIV to meet the national goals of
my country while including the international targets from the MDGs, the
political declaration and UNAIDS strategy by 2015.
From outreach to programming,
elaboration of proposals, reporting, monitoring, media, planning, civil society
opened to me all doors to meet meaningful participation not only in SRHR of
young people but also in processes of strategic thinking in the Aids response.
In summer 2011, the
office of UNAIDS rewarded me with an amazing experience of capacity building. I
became a trainee and benefited of it’s support to clearly understand and meet
the global policies of programs fighting AIDS. Thanking them would never be enough
for their availability to assist me and believe in my abilities of a young
leader in my country and my region. Probably, one of the most noteworthy
confidence UNAIDS and the NGOs I work with gave me was during my participation in the new generation leadership of UNAIDS secretariat
called CrowdOutAIDS.
This project used media tools and crowd sourcing
technology and aimed at designing a strategy by and for youth to better involve
them in the Aids response and better respond to what is important to them.
Since the launch of the initiative, with peers, we had a productive role in the
discussions at country, regional and national level on subjects that concern us
as young people such as reproductive health, prevention, access to services and
fight against stigma and discrimination as well as empowerment of leadership,
technical and financial support and gender equalities. During the period of
share, I joined offline open forums where I could work on bringing together
youth activists, vulnerable and most at risk youth to participate with their recommendations.
Afterwards, I was selected to be in the drafting committee where I could
continue defending the concerns of youth from the MENA region. As challenging
and hard as it seemed to be, this first collective action of young people to
share their perspectives and ensure their voice is heard is the most
revolutionary, informed, supportive,
equal and respectful step toward youth leadership.
This is my humble story among values, believes, people
and loads of hopes for a cause that knew how to dominate all of me to defend it
and stand up for it today, tomorrow and forever…
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