Keynote Speech: Kate Roberts, YouthAIDS
Event summaries from Globalization Week Fall 2004
Date: Thursday, September 30, 2004
Time: 6:30-8:00 pm
Location: Lindner Commons, 1957 E St NW, 6th Floor
Kate Roberts is the founder and director of YouthAIDS, an international marketing campaign to combat the spread of AIDS among the world's youth. The program is housed at Population Services International (PSI) in Washington, DC, and Ms. Roberts presented the Globalization Week Keynote Speech to discuss how her work proves that the forces of globalization and development can work together to produce positive results.
Ms. Roberts began by explaining why she created YouthAIDS. A former marketing executive in Europe, she had worked on huge advertising campaigns for such companies as Coca-Cola and Philip Morris. While on vacation to South Africa during this time, she was struck by the large number of funerals she witnessed. When she asked about them, she was told that they were all funerals to mourn people who had died of AIDS. This experience was something of a revelation to her and Ms. Roberts decided then that instead of continuing to market sugar and cigarettes to teenagers around the world, she would use her marketing skills to promote awareness and prevent the spread of AIDS.
AIDS is a devastating disease and a worldwide pandemic that is spreading rapidly among youth. Today over 12 million people under the age of 25 live with HIV or AIDS, and another 15 million are orphaned because of the loss of their parents to the disease. Every single day, an additional 6,000 youth are infected with HIV and most of them do not know that they carry the virus. The mission of YouthAIDS is specifically to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS among the world's youth. This is carried out in three ways: by encouraging sexual behavior change among youth through the promotion of condom use, delayed first encounters, and monogamy, by raising funds from the private sector and utilizing media resources, and by acting as a resource for NGO field offices to develop communications with celebrities and other popular role models.
YouthAIDS is run like a marketing business. Currently working in 70 countries, the organization develops, in conjunction with local NGOs and governments, individualized campaigns relevant to each nation's needs. The campaigns speak the language of youth, with upbeat and sexy messages, and feature celebrities from the entertainment industry, as well as local heroes, to encourage youth to understand the risk of AIDS and to change their behavior accordingly. Funds go to the creation of voluntary HIV testing and counseling programs, to the promotion of female empowerment by educating women about condom use, as well as to peer education programs and mass media events. Other campaigns have had the objective of reducing the stigma of condom use or HIV testing.
The campaign has also been able to secure major corporate sponsorship. For example, Levi's has contributed a total of $2.3 million to the organization, and YouthAIDS counts other major sponsors in MTV, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Kiehl's and the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. Furthermore, YouthAIDS has received the assistance of many celebrities, including its Global Ambassador, actress Ashley Judd. Other celebrities who have contributed their time and money toward YouthAIDS include Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys, Destiny's Child, Missy Elliott, Wyclef Jean, Bono, and many others. In 2002, MTV aired YouthAIDS concerts in Seattle and Cape Town, South Africa, where popular musicians and other celebrities used the stage to spread the YouthAIDS message to large audiences. YouthAIDS estimates that its campaigns have reached a global audience of over 1 billion people in more than 170 countries.
AIDS is a glaring example of how globalization has created an interconnected, fluid global society. The rapid spread of the disease to virtually every region of the globe proves that countries are very closely linked to one another across the planet. Likewise, Ms. Roberts is proving that it is equally possible to spread education, awareness and prevention across countries. HIV/AIDS has infected an alarmingly number of people, but its spread is not inevitable. Through advertisement, marketing and help from private funding and celebrities, YouthAIDS is making a difference.
