Youth AIDS Diary, a Davidson College student project, has been selected for inclusion in the Global Village at the 19th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012), which will take place July 22-27 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

The Global Village, open to conference delegates and the general public, aims to intensify the involvement of key stakeholders in the conference and in the global response to AIDS. As part of Youth AIDS Diary’s activity, students from Davidson College will ask young people attending the conference what HIV/AIDS means to them. Video responses will be added to a growing multimedia Web site that presents a picture of how this pandemic affects young people from throughout the world.

Youth AIDS Diary was one of only 280 Global Village activities accepted for inclusion in the AIDS 2012 program out of more than 1,000 submissions. Examples of other activities at the Global Village include sessions, forums, oral presentations, awards, networking zones, NGO exhibition booths, marketplace booths, art exhibits, film screenings and performing arts.

“I’m very proud of the work my students have done on this project,” said David Wessner, Professor of Biology at Davidson College. “After we gather diary entries at the conference and load them to our site, Youth AIDS Diary will provide a wonderful snapshot of how HIV/AIDS affects the young people of the world. I’m especially excited that these Davidson College students and a group of high school students from the Community School of Davidson can attend AIDS 2012. It will be a transformative experience for all of them.”