Gender, Youth, HIV/AIDS
At the end of 2007 the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimated that out of the 30,8 million adults worldwide living with HIV, around half are women.
It is suggested that 98 percent of these women live in developing countries like Zimbabwe.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA) has reported that almost a quarter of people living with HIV are under the age of 25 and that young people now represent half of all new cases.
An estimated 6,000 young people are infected every day, which represents one every 14 minutes.
The majority are women and girls.
One time Russian ruler once said, "a thousand death are a static and a single death is a tragedy." This is handy in framing news but false when dealing with HIV/ADS.
The statistics above underlie the point that HIV?AIDS is a major threat to women and young people, especially in poor third world communities.
This is why the RLRDP runs a programme aimed at empowering rural communities on the dangers of HIV/AIDS.
The Gender, Youth, HIV/AIDS project, which operates within the ambit of RLRDP's broader vision, provides current information on HIV/AIDS.
It provides a platform to share information and experiences on HIV/AIDS among the youths and uses discussions, theatre, print and non-print material to disseminate this information.
It involves men and women, boys and girls at a grassroots level. This is because development is gender inclusive.
