Some suggestions for how to be an activist
in support of ImpAcTAIDS ideals
- Think about asking ImpAcTAIDS
for a speaker to come to any group to which you belong, whether it
is a political, social, religious group or whatever. We will do our
best to give a talk highlighting what would be appropriate to the
group with our aims in mind. To find out about how and where we are
email us at our email address: impactaidsuk@hotmail.com
- If you are in any sort of organisation which passes motions to
go forward to annual meetings or has a newsletter which gets circulated,
try putting something forward, or if you are not sure what to say,
contact us for a suggested motion or a short article. We will do our
best to supply something suitable.
- Write to your MP and/or go to his/her surgery to discuss the ImpAcTAIDS
message, and try to get some sort of commitment to supporting work
on good HIV/AIDS treatment programmes.
- Write to your MSP and go the his/her surgery to explain how solidarity
even at a Scottish level makes a huge impact.
- Write to your local councillor to suggest that there are possibilities
of making links with health projects and sharing skills, and more
importantly finding ways of supporting communities who can benefit
from DOT HAART (Directly Observed Treatment with Highly Active Anti-Retroviral
Therapy).
- Look at the website of DFID's 2008 Paper on achieving universal
access to treatment, which sets out their current strategy. Make comments
and suggest that the best way to help is to fund our kind of treatment
programmes. Website address: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Pubs/files/achieving-universal-access.pdf
- Read about the StopAIDS campaign and see if you can join a local
group: http://www.stopaidscampaign.org.uk/
- Find out whether People and Planet Group is active at your nearest
university or college and if it is, ask them what help they need in
their new campaign which is access to anti-retroviral treatment. If
there isn’t one in your area, think about setting one up! Their
website address: www.peopleandplanet.org
- Look at the International Treatment Access Coalition (ITAC)
website which will give some help to those who are thinking of setting
up treatment programmes. There is now a means of sharing good practice
and before getting too involved in designing a campaign, check to
see who has done what already, and support those which are working
well. This organisation has a long and impressive history of campaigning
and has ideas on how to work with communities who want to access treatment.
Their website: http://www.tac.org.za/community/
- Visit www.hivscotland.com for information about what is happening in Scotland with regard to campaigning for universal access to treatment.