Lately I have enjoyed viewing www.ted.com, a site that webcasts ideas worth spreading. In particular, ted.com highlights many of the world’s best speakers presenting on a range of subjects. I find many of the topics mentally stimulating and very inspiring. Some of the presenters speak on how people are generating social change by using social media technology.

One of the recent social media campaigns that has personally touched me is ‘it gets better’, which can be found at www.itgetsbetterproject.com. A response to recent suicides of LGBT young people in the USA that have been linked to school bullying and homophobia, this campaign encourages people to take a pledge to help young people at risk. The website gives people the opportunity to upload their own personal story on how ‘it gets better’.

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In WA we have been working to address some of the consequences of homophobia and bullying at schools through the Freedom Centre www.freedom.org.au .

The world is familiar with social movements. Consider the notion of marrying for love or following your bliss and finding work that you enjoy and is meaningful. These social movements are important, because hopefully over time as we become more enlightened human beings, we will progress all of humanity to a better place. I would encourage you to participate in a social movement that has meaning to you.

As World AIDS Day approaches, I ponder what the social movement around HIV is about. Perhaps early on in the HIV epidemic of the ’80s and ’90s it was about the right for homosexuals to be medically treated with dignity, and without fear from the health system. I think over time the HIV social movement has evolved to possibly a broader social justice agenda which includes the right for everybody to have access to good health care. I like the idea of creating a world where nothing gets in the way of you accessing health care if you need it to live. The creative challenge is to do this in a sustainable way for everyone.

The broader emphasis on rights is reflected in the international theme for World AIDS Day 2010, ‘Universal Access and Human Rights’. The WA AIDS Council invites you to join us for World AIDS Day on December 1 at the AIDS memorial at Robertson Park in North Perth from 5.30pm.

If you have ideas on how we could use technology to celebrate, strengthen, or grow the HIV social movement in WA I’m open to hearing your ideas. Please email me via cmartinez@waaids.com.

Cipri Martinez

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