Professionals working with children who attended the XVth International AIDS Conference in Bangkok in 2004 left the conference greatly disappointed. Children’s issues received little profile, despite the staggering numbers of children infected or infected around the world. When children were highlighted, they were portrayed without nuance, as either carefree, or as helpless victims. Many of the professionals who made presentations on children’s issues failed to fully take advantage of the opportunity to promote learning in their field. Instead, they fell into a common conference trap: describing programs with no analysis or without saying anything new, or presenting research without adequately commenting on its implications. Media coverage of children’s issues was poor.

In April 2004, Bernard van Leer Foundation (Netherlands), Firelight Foundation (US) and International HIV/AIDS Alliance (UK) launched an ad-hoc international coalition – the Coalition on Children Affected by AIDS (CCABA) - to ensure that this problem did not reoccur in Toronto in 2006. With seed money provided by the two foundations, a Toronto-based consultant, John Miller, was hired in April 2005. Starting with mailing lists donated by founding members, a coalition of over 100 was built, composed of people working in funding organizations, both private and governmental, children’s specialists in large and small aid agencies, and researchers and academics working in the field. A steering committee was selected.

The Project Consultant soon identified that The Teresa Group and The Hospital for Sick Children were co-organizing a 2-day pre-conference symposium – Envisioning the Future. CCABA soon decided that supporting Envisioning the Future would become part of the coalition’s mandate. The Teresa Group also agreed to be the grantee through which money fund-raised for both CCABA and Envisioning the Future would flow. Steering Committee members eventually recruited other major funding partners, as well as funders who came on board to provide funding for the pre-conference symposium.

All the key elements were in place to begin our work.

At the Toronto conference, we saw some improvement in terms of highlighting children's issues, and Envisioning the Future was a great success. However, it was clear that this project would need to be a longer term venture. The Steering Committee felt that working to influence international meetings was only one part of a broader strategy. After an environmental scan of which coalitions were doing what work related to HIV/AIDS and children, the Steering Committee settled on a new Terms of Reference for CCABA. These terms spell out that CCABA is a collective of private or public foundations and re-granting organizations, supported by a wide list of technical advisors.

Its objectives would be 1) Knowledge development and 2) Policy development, with the following activities:

A. Working to raise the issues of children affected by HIV/AIDS at the International AIDS Conference held every two years. This work will include:

1) Facilitating the convening of a symposium on children affected by HIV/AIDS to be held prior to the International AIDS Conference (IAC) every two years.

2) Working with a network of child-focused organisations to increase the quality, relevance, and persuasiveness of the evidence they bring to the IAC and other international meetings.

3) Where possible, CCABA will also work to raise children's issues at other selected key international conferences and meetings: e.g. regional conferences in Africa, Asia, Latin America or Europe. Each meeting's strategic importance would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

B. Supporting those organizations and individuals who are developing common external advocacy positions or strategies.

C. Using CCABA to share and/or develop internal funding guidelines or operational policy with respect to grantees or potential grantees and, where appropriate, to harmonize those guidelines or policies.

These Terms of Reference were adopted 21 September 2006 in Toronto. For the full text, please follow this link.

In Mexico City in August of 2008, children were finally on the map. Linda Richter presented the first plenary in the conference's history that dealth with on children infected AND affected - in other words, both medical and psychosocial issues were covered. Visibility of children's issues in other sesions was improved, and the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS presented their preliminary findings. However, evidence being presented in abstract sessions is still lacking, and children still haven't broken into the non-abstract sessions in any serious way. Some conference-goers commented that if it weren't for the plenary and the satellites (which organizations pay for), children would still not have been on the agenda.

Nonetheless, Children and HIV/AIDS: Action Now, Action How, a 2-day symposium organized by CCABA, The Teresa Group and Casa de la sal, was a huge success. Bringing together over 500 people from over 70 countries during the 2 days preceding AIDS 2008, it allowed professionals working with children to really sink their teeth into the issues.

CCABA’s Agenda until 2010:

On August 3rd 2008, CCABA held a 3-hour strategy meeting in Mexico City to decide its agenda for the next two years. CCABA has been working on the following projects:

1) Together with The Teresa Group, organizing & holding a children & HIV/AIDS symposium called “Children and HIV: Family Support First - Working Together to Achieve Universal Support and Access to Treatment”. This symposium will take place on July 16 & 17, 2010 at the Austria Center in Vienna, Austria.

2) Launching and beginning a study in several African countries involving a children’s cohort. This study will determine what links exist between community-based program interventions aimed at vulnerable children and psychosocial and health outcomes in children.

3) Holding a series of meetings on evidence behind effective family-based care models. At these meetings, commissioned academic papers are being presented. At the end of this process, a synthesis paper will be written and circulated, and its finding presented at AIDS 2010 in Vienna.

4) Brokering the hiring of a Vulnerable Children Specialist at the Global Fund on AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, with funding from the Swedish International Development Agency. CCABA will be involved in the hiring and will sit on an advisory committee for this position.

5) Advocating for activities to highlight children and research on children at AIDS 2010 in Vienna.

6) Creating a first-ever child-focused research award to be presented at AIDS 2010 in Vienna.