On Wednesday May 11 we hosted a conference about HIV vaccination in Varanasi. The below is a video from the event, but I have it set to start at a theater and music portion of the event as most of the presentation is in Hindi.
I got a notice about an HIV vaccine conference funding opportunity and suggested to Nandan, Ravi, and Babu that we all apply for the funding.
We got the grant. It was for USD $1000 and we had to organize a conference to commemorate HIV Vaccine Awareness Day on May 18. We did our conference on May 11, which was the day before I was scheduled to leave India and the last acceptable day by the grant guidelines to put the event within a week of the actual day.
We first talked to some speakers who would be in a panel for the event. We eventually selected a director from Benares Network of Positive People, a BHU law professor who did research in HIV discrimination law, a Sampurnanand professor who researches the culture of masculinity and its relationship with women’s rights, and me as someone who knows a little about HIV vaccination. We had a microbiology graduate student drop in from Australia and she also spoke a little at the event.
In addition to this Father Anand arranged for his theatre troupe to do a skit about HIV in front of the audience. I was really pleased with their performance and find him to be the most organized, honest, and efficient NGO director in Varanasi. I really look forward to working more with him because he seems to want my support and I absolutely need his because he knows the city organizational sector like no one else.
Before the event Ravi and I personally visited about 20 NGO offices to invite them and check them out. We took interviews of staff members to find out what the NGO does and get their contact information. Father Anand had already created a base for this by publishing such a list in Hindi which had a name of the organization and a contact number, but we needed something more detailed and in English. We translated the list and called every organization and visited as many as we had time to visit. We plan to polish both the Hindi and English version and publish it and distribute it freely both online and in print.
It was difficult to get much information of HIV vaccination out because the community base has very little background in HIV and not much more understanding of what a vaccine is. However, this has to change. IAVI recently announced a partnership with Indian government whereby they will expand HIV vaccination trials.
Nandan and Ravi put together the report to the sponsor. I was thrilled that what they wrote was better than any report which I could have written. It really makes me proud to think that I am working with people who are non-native English speakers who can write technical papers better than I can. I proofread what they wrote and their grammar mistakes were minimal. I feel really good about doing more of this kind of work in the future.