November 28, 2007

NEW YORK – Leaders come in all shapes and sizes and this World AIDS Day humanitarian agency Church World Service is highlighting efforts by young people around the world to increase awareness about HIV and AIDS.

When children living in a Church World Service-supported boarding home in East Jakarta, Indonesia, began producing clay pins featuring girls and boys with AIDS awareness ribbons, they were raising funds to support HIV and AIDS education, vocational training, and counseling for vulnerable children.

Their handcrafted three-dimensional pins now have moved beyond Indonesia to join other Church World Service AIDS pins as symbols of leadership in efforts to halt a worldwide epidemic that has claimed more than 25 million people so far.

The United Church of Christ intends to use the CWS clay pins from Indonesia to further promote awareness and youth involvement. Last year, the UCC AIDS network and One Great Hour of Sharing gave Church World Service AIDS awareness pins made by Pakistani women as gifts to 600 dinner guests at their 2007 annual gathering. The dinner highlighted the Church's engagement with communities in the U.S. and with partners around the world in ministries to children.

"We selected the CWS HIV and AIDS awareness pins from Pakistan in order to fulfill the international dinner theme ‘Let the Children Speak' and the General Synod theme ‘Let it Shine!,'" said Susan Sanders, a UCC minister and global sharing of resources executive. "Wearing the pins is a symbol of commitment to continue the fight against HIV and AIDS by asking the U.S. government to take the lead in providing the resources to reach the Millennium Development Goal on HIV and AIDS."

The effort to encourage world leaders and policymakers to deliver on their Millennium Development Goal promise to provide the resources necessary to halt and reverse the spread of AIDS by 2015 is a major global campaign.

Lack of leadership at all levels is the main reason this promise is not being kept. Building on last year's theme of accountability, the 2007 World AIDS Day theme is leadership.

Church World Service Education and Advocacy Director Rajyashri Waghray applauds the innovative leadership taken by children and youth working with adults at CWS-supported programs in Indonesia, Sudan, the Dominican Republic, and other countries.

The at-risk youngsters at the Ruma Kita Foundation home in East Jakarta, Indonesia are showing leadership in their community's AIDS awareness efforts by sharing what they are learning about the disease with other vulnerable boys and girls.

Adds Waghray, "We all need to take the lead in developing an integrated, effective, and sustainable long-term response. As part of our response, CWS provides education and advocacy resources to make every day a World AIDS Day dedicated to stopping AIDS."

AIDS awareness pins can be given to honor people who are leading HIV and AIDS efforts in their schools, churches or communities or worn as an ongoing symbol of AIDS awareness this World AIDS Day and beyond.

Read more about what you can do for World AIDS Day.

Church World Service