Turning the Tide Project The Turning the Tide Project will be the interactive activity within the

Global Village for the XIX International AIDS Conference. It will be a continually updated slide show depicting photographed messages relating the conference theme. We ask our international partners and representatives of key affected populations to contribute to this project by addressing the conference theme:
Turning the Tide Together reflects a unique moment in time, emphasizing that the HIV epidemic has reached a defining moment. By acting decisively on recent scientific advances in HIV treatment and biomedical prevention, the momentum for a cure, and the continuing evidence of the ability to scale-up key interventions in the most-needed settings, we now have the potential to end the HIV epidemic. Capturing the current sense of hope and the renewed optimism that a change of course in the epidemic is possible, Turning the Tide Together also serves as an urgent call to action. It acknowledges that seizing this potential and actually turning the tide on HIV and AIDS will require commitment and action on many levels: that each and every stakeholder in the HIV and AIDS response must play their role. Turning the Tide Together evokes both the scale of the task in hand and the power of AIDS 2012 to mobilize governments, NGOs, policy makers, scientists, civil society organizations, journalists and people living with HIV to join forces and build the necessary momentum to turn the tide on HIV and AIDS.

Through this project, our international partners and key affected population representatives will have the opportunity to share how they would address the question: What does Turning the Tide Together mean to you, your organization and/or your community? Their messages will be displayed through photographs in a slide show that will be launched during the AIDS 2012 Opening Ceremony for the Global Village and Youth Pavilion. Their thoughts will then be used as a bridging point to ask this same question to AIDS 2012 participants and Global Village visitors. At the end of the slide show, it will read You have seen what our Global Village and Youth representatives have to say; now we want to hear from you. Then the rest of the conference delegates and general public will have the opportunity to post their photographed message on the Global Village Flickr page, and the slide show will be continually updated with these photos and displayed on the Global Village Main Stage between activities throughout the rest of the week. In order to prepare for this, we ask you to print out the included template and write down what the conference theme Turning the Tide Together means to you, your organization, and/or your community from a grassroots level. Then take that message and take a picture of it with members of your organization or community in a place that represents your global identity or affected population. Please then send that photo to us and we will include it in the slide show that will be presented at the Opening Ceremony.