This year we have decided to pilot Student Stop AIDS Campaign Hubs for graduates who want to stay involved with the Student Stop AIDS Campaign. These groups will run just like Student Stop AIDS societies at university accept you don’t need to be a student to join!

Rather than setting lots up we would like to start by setting up a few in key areas where graduates end up, so if you are planning on moving to London, Manchester, Edinburgh or Bristol and would be interested in joining one of these student hubs let us know, please email stopaids@spw.org.

If you are not going to one of these cities, and want to set a hub up where you are let us know, please email stopaids@spw.org.

A free residential training weekend will equip you with the skills to train young people, support them in taking action, and generate reports so that dance4life UK can show leaders and decision makers that young people care about the HIV pandemic!

To get an application pack, contact Jo at joanna.seth-smith@spw.org or 0207 808 1778.

When? 30th July 2010, 2-4pm
Where? London
What? Speakout4life
Why? To introduce young people (13 - 21 year olds) to national and international decision making institutions and build their capacity to put pressure on decision makers to create change around development issues.

If you fancy coming along (or even helping out!), we’d love to see you, so please send an email to Jo at joanna.seth-smith@spw.org asap!

The Patent Pool now had offices, full time members of staff and an office and is ready to start engaging with Pharmaceutical companies and getting their  patents in the pool!

This means we too are ready to start phase 2 of our patent pool campaign and start really pushing those pharmaceuticals to join the pool, and our efforts are much needed, as by April 2011 there must be 3 separate patents from 3 different pharmaceutical companies in the pool, and by June 2011 there must be 5 patents in total in the pool.

This means there is a lot of work to do between now and summer 2011 to make sure the patent pool does not fail, and pharmaceutical companies give up their patents in support of those most in need around the world.

Student Stop AIDS Campaign has some exciting activities planned for you at your freshers fairs, throughout the speaker tour and for World AIDS Day, more information to follow in campaign packs.

But get ready for an exciting and busy year encouraging and supporting pharmaceutical companies to join this much needed pool to help provide people across the world attain the life saving medicines they need.

We have gained success in setting up a patent pool when those around us thought it wouldn’t be done, and we will succeed again in getting the patent pool up and running!

At the February training my society and I found the skill share sessions very useful, as it was an opportunity to learn new things and it was taught in an interactive way. The graduate trainers running the sessions mentioned at the time that they could do further training at our universities.

After Leeds new committee were elected they decided they would really benefit from some training so I  arranged for Ness to come to Leeds to run a training session.

On the day Ness provided an overview of the patent pool and Robin Hood tax campaigns to make sure everyone was up to date and fully in the know. She then covered a whole range of issues such as media, publicity and recruiting, as well as giving the societies help and advice on holding a meeting.

The whole day was very worthwhile, interactive, informative and gave the new committee the extra confidence they need to make their societies as successful as possible. Ness was brilliant at teaching and flexible in arranging a time we all could do.

Graduate trainers have so much experience and knowledge which can help our societies. I would urge everyone to get in contact with their grad trainer and organise a session!

To find out how you can be a graduate trainer or to organise some training for your society please send an email to jane.broomfield@spw.org.

This opened the door to a large scale power that they might be able to throw behind the RHT campaign, which is the power of the Student’s Union. Matt Quinn the president did some research into how students can change union policy by reading the union’s constitution and consulting the VP for education and representation. The conclusion was that if it was not a political campaign and that he could hold his own in debating its relevance at Union Council he may be able to pass a motion, getting the Student’s Union to support the campaign and its campaigners.

“The Robin Hood Tax Motion” was brought before council on Monday the 19th of April, debated hard and then voted upon. Highlights of the debate were that some members believed that the motion was too political and did not affect students. The motion states that the Union will publicly support the campaign and its supporters. The vote results were: 59% for, 30% against and 11% abstained from the vote. Southampton Stop AIDS hopes to introduce leaflets and banners on site as well as place an advert on the union’s website stating its support. “This has been a huge step for the campaign, now we just need other uni’s to follow!”

The biggest Student Stop AIDS speaker tour to date which visited 22 universities, spoke to over 800 students and went to the House of Commons and DFID;

Patent pool campaign success, as in December UNITAID voted to go through with the creation of a patent pool;

The biggest Student Stop AIDS February Training with over 100 students descending on Sheffield for a long weekend and a massive ceilidh;

Joining one of the largest campaign coalitions to push for a Robin Hood Tax which will help provide new financing streams for development;

And an exciting build up to one of the biggest general elections in recent history, where the Student Stop AIDS Campaign has been involved in Student Hustings around the country.

With the summer holidays in front of most of you, this is the time to thank all of you for your support over the last year and I look forward to seeing most of you back in September, when once again we will be back on the patent pool campaign trail, persuading big Pharma to give up their patent’s and help to achieve universal access to treatment for all.

Although 4 million people in lower income countries have been enrolled in treatment programmes, 6 million more are in need. In addition, WHO guidelines have recently changed to recommend commencing ART earlier in the disease course. This could mean an extra 3-5 million people (on top of the 6 million) in need.

In order to provide for this demand, serious political will (and money!) is required. As an example, the UK needs to almost double its contribution to HIV funding.

To read the article in full, see http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/340/apr26_2/c2284

As well as being an election year, 2010 marks the deadline for the G8’s pledge to deliver universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. However, 10 million adults and children are still waiting for life-saving treatment. We need our politicians to lead on ending this injustice and we need you to do two things to make sure they do.

1.  Click here to complete a quick online action that will email your general election candidates demanding they support action on HIV

2. Get ten other people to do it too – forward this email to your friends and family so we maximise the impact. Tell them why you took the action.

We need to remind politicians how important the response to HIV is. Supporters like you all across the country are taking this action – emailing their parliamentary candidates to tell them about the Stop AIDS Campaign and ask them to meet with us and the coordinator of the AIDS group in parliament.

Your emails will go to all of the people standing for election where you live. If they email you back make sure you get in touch with us (diarmaid@aidsconsortium.org.uk) to let us know what they say.

Universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support is possible. But this won’t happen without your help. Please, take action and spread the word!

Thanks!!

The new Robin Hood Tax film featuring Sir Ben Kingsley, Noel Clarke (Kidulthood, Dr Who), Tom Felton (Harry Potter) Joe Dempsie (Skins), Blake Harrison (The Inbetweeners) and Jaime Winstone (Kidulthood). If you haven’t already vote yes to a Robin Hood Tax today! #~~>