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UN Secretary visiting LYAP to award prizes in a poster design competition.
The founder of LYAP,
Vieng Akhone Souriyo, was awarded the 2004 United Nations Development Achievement Award on 18 Oct in Vientiane. Here, the award is being presented by Deputy Foreign Minister
Somsavat Lengsavad.
'The UN believes that LYAP is an ideal example of how young people in Lao PDR can shape the future of their country. In recognising LYAP, the UN is also acknowledging the importance of HIV/AIDS prevention in Lao PDR today,' said Finn Reske-Nielsen, head of the UN in Lao PDR.
'Young people's participation in HIV prevention is crucial, as they are the group most at risk,” said Prudence Borthwick, Head of UNICF Laos' HIV/AIDS Section. 'The excellent work LYAP has done in a short time demonstrates how creative and effective young people can be if they are given the opportunity. It's also a reminder to the rest of us to make sure we provide opportunities for young people to realize their right to participate .'
“A friend I met while I worked in a restaurant as a student, who despite being an exceptional and caring person, had been ostracised and shunned by his family. When they learned he had AIDS they kicked him out,' he recalls.
Vieng Akhone says his off-hand offer of a place to stay for his friend, who had contracted HIV while working in Thailand, changed the direction of his life and sewed the seeds for the group he and a friend would later found, the Lao Youth AIDS Prevention Program (LYAP). 'He told me how he got infected, how his life changed, how he was stigmatised and discriminated against. He talked very openly with me,' says Vieng Akhone.
Eventually the friendship would lead him to become one of only a few AIDS activists in Laos.
By the time his friend had died three years ago from an AIDS related illness, Vieng Akhone who only graduated from university in 2001, had established LYAP with his friend Vanhpheng Singhara, who is now a director of a youth volunteer group 'Youth Fighting AIDS' (YFA ). The youth volunteer group began to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS issue in Lao PDR.
But initially the response was sceptical. 'When we began telling people about our idea to start a youth AIDS prevention program in Vientiane, many of our friends laughed at us,' says Vieng Akhone. Nevertheless, they set out to do just that, by initially training five volunteers, teaching them information about AIDS, how to talk to other young people about the disease and how to train other people to be peer educators themselves. They then organised a meeting, which Vieng Akhone paid for with his own money, where he and his volunteers trained 40 high school students. This group became the first team of peer educators to work for LYAP.
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