The Asia Catalyst booth. L-R: Li Dan, Shen Tingting, Will Lian. (Courtesy Zhao Gang)

By Meg Davis

At 5 pm, the crowd began to assemble on the square in front of the Messe Wien convention center. Some handed out signs reading "Broken promises kill" or "we are watching" over photos of giant eyeballs. Others wrestled in the wind with a black-and-white banner reading "No retreat, fund AIDS."

On July 5^th, China convened the first meeting of the Red Ribbon Forum, a gathering of government officials, NGOs and experts to discuss AIDS and human rights concerns. Mark Heywood, the chair of the UNAIDS Theme Group on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights, delivered a speech calling for more space for civil society. During an intense - and in China, unprecedented - discussion period, civil society representatives raised frank concerns about a range of human rights issues, including ongoing restrictions on civil society, and demands for compensation for the blood scandal that transmitted HIV to thousands of villagers. The full text of Heywood's speech follows.

Marcus and his wife, Amina Evangelista Swanepoel, are in the early stages of founding a new reproductive health NGO in the rural Philippines, Roots of Health. This is one in an occasional series of blogs about their experiences.

"Who can tell me the answer.... Marcus?" I hear the voice of my second grade teacher calling on me to answer a question to which I have no answer. The feeling of humiliation that I'd feel still haunts me today. In class I would always sink into my seat when my teacher uttered those dreaded words. At that point of my life, school was stressful for me, and I didn't like going. My negative experiences regarding school however, pale in comparison to those of the children at Pulang Lupa [in the Philippines].

By Meg Davis

Next month, Asia Catalyst is supporting a delegation of Chinese AIDS activists to go to Vienna for the International AIDS Conference. Like (no doubt) many of you, we've spent a fair amount of time sitting through boring conference presentations around the world. But making a conference presentation valuable and memorable is possible. Here are ten tips we came up with:

By Loretta Wong

When it comes to grassroots AIDS advocacy at the local level, I used to be a fierce lion and fearless tiger in the old days. But I rarely got what I wanted from others, and government stakeholders tried their best to avoid me.

Now that I am getting old(er), I realize that elements of advocacy such as inter-personal relationship, trust and communication are important, too. These may be Chinese, but I do not think these elements exist solely in Chinese culture. I am pragmatic - I really want to see change and improvement as soon as possible. Here are five things I try to keep in mind about grassroots AIDS advocacy.

On June 14-15, the United Nations convened informal hearings in the General Assembly for NGOs on the Millennium Development Goals. The hearings were to prepare states for the more high-profile summit on the MDGs scheduled for September 20-22. Unfortunately, while the NGO presentations were diverse and international, turnout by member states was relatively low.