Communities lie at the heart of the response to HIV–displaying extraordinary courage and resilience in addressing one of the greatest challenges of our time. Community-based organizations are often the driving forces in the response to the epidemic. Using creative and practical ways to provide treatment, care and support to people living with and affected by HIV, community initiatives address the loss of human capacity and innovate in the face of deepening poverty, stigma and discrimination. These acts of community leadership show us, in practical ways, how to shape and contain a global epidemic – one community at a time.

The Red Ribbon Award is a partnership of the UNAIDS family and governments. The award is presented every two years at the International AIDS Conferences to 25 community-based organizations who demonstrate outstanding community leadership and action on AIDS. Through a community-led selection process winning organizations are selected to receive a cash prize and international recognition through various mechanisms.

Red Ribbon Award winning organizations are invited at the International AIDS Conferences and regional conferences, where they act as the hosts of Community Dialogue Spaces.  These spaces promote bridge-building between diverse stakeholders of the response to the epidemic, encourage the sharing of peer to peer knowledge, inform national and global policy through local-global conversations, and develop capacity of its participants.

“Let the dialogue begin.” With these invigorating words, Jeffrey O’Malley, Director of UNDP’s HIV/AIDS Practice Group, opened the Community Tequio Dialogue Space in the Global Village at the XVII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2008) in Mexico City.

Founded on the guiding principle that communities are the driving force in the global response to HIV, the Community Dialogue Space (CDS) is intended to create opportunities for local voices to highlight and celebrate the success of community action around the world. The goal is to draw crucial attention to community expertise and its successes while fostering peer-to-peer exchange and providing local organizations direct access to policymakers present at the conference. Representatives from grassroots organizations from around the globe engage in local-global discussions on the challenges and opportunities associated with working in the field of HIV, and give presentations about their work in their own communities. The space is also used for press conferences and media interaction, bringing community voices to the world at large. The core group and hosts of the CDS consists of two representatives from each of the 25 winning communities of the Red Ribbon Award.

Like the Community Gii Maa Moob Min Dialogue Space at AIDS 2006 in Toronto, the Community Tequio at AIDS 2008 is a place for genuine and informed exchange, dedicated to promoting community action on AIDS worldwide. In addition to fruitful exchanges among peers, community representatives gain unparalleled direct access to global leaders such as Thoraya Obaid (UNFPA) and Rebeca Grynspan (UNDP), Michel Kazatchkine (Global Fund), President Mary Robinson, Justice Edwin Cameron, and Dr. Tracy Higgins, and Elizabeth Mataka in open and genuine conversations. In addition to achieving measurable impact on the ground, local responses to the HIV epidemic can successfully inform global policy, particularly when discussions are undertaken within a collaborative framework that stimulates innovative partnerships to bridge bottom-up and top-down approaches. Towards this, community representatives work collectively - the definition of the Zapotec word “Tequio” for which the dialogue space is named - to draft a “Community Declaration,” presented at the conclusion of the conference and highlighting the key concerns and policy recommendations of community organizations working at the forefront of the response to HIV.

Discussion issues at the Community Tequio Dialogue Space included HIV prevention, care, treatment, support, funding, and issues related to international human rights frameworks, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, orphaned and vulnerable children, and women with HIV. Dialogue space programming began Sunday, August 3rd and sessions continued through Thursday, August 7th.