Fighting HIV/AIDS through Education

"With no cure for AIDS, education is currently the most effective way to fight the spread of the virus," Photo credit: UNAIDS

The Commonwealth Secretariat, in partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), is launching an initiative to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS through education in the Caribbean. The first internationally supported Chair to highlight the critical role education must play in fighting the pandemic will be appointed at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Barbados.

"With no cure for AIDS, education is currently the most effective way to fight the spread of the virus," said Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Winston Cox, who will be present at the official launch on 21 October 2004, at UWI's Cave Hill Campus in Barbados.

"The Commonwealth has a major role to play in sharing and disseminating information to all its member states about the importance of education as a tool to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic." 

He stated that the creation of a Chair in HIV/AIDS Education is an important part of this process, and the Secretariat is pleased to work with UNESCO in "striving together towards a world without AIDS".

More than 50,000 new cases of HIV were reported in the Caribbean last year, according to UNAIDS, with some 400,000 others already living with HIV in the region. UNAIDS also estimates that, last year, AIDS killed 35,000 people in the Caribbean.

The appointment of the Chair in 2005 will be selected from candidates across the Commonwealth. 

Note to Editors:

In September this year, Ministers of Education agreed on the "Stoke Rochford Statement" on Education for a World without AIDS which re-affirmed the commitment made by Commonwealth Education Ministers at the 15th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (15CCEM) in Edinburgh last year "to include compulsory age-appropriate HIV/AIDS education in the curriculum of every education system within the Commonwealth, including teacher education."

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