PSI is pleased to have had a significant presence at the XVII International AIDS Conference held in Mexico City. The week was packed with presentations, satellite sessions, press events and interviews.

Throughout these events, PSI succeeded in bringing important issues such as male circumcision to the forefront and drew international and national media attention to several of its platforms.

PSI held a press conference on Monday, Aug. 4, to highlight the importance of male circumcision (MC) in HIV prevention, focusing in part on its MC program in Zambia. The briefing attracted more than 20 journalists from major media outlets in the U.S. and Europe. The four speakers, Dr. Robert Bailey from the University of Illinois at Chicago's School of Public Health; Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition; Zambia-based BBC reporter Kennedy Gondwe; and PSI/Mozambique HIV Director Dvora Joseph gave interviews that spoke to the high potential of MC as a viable and effective intervention in the fight against HIV.

Read the Reuters coverage of male circumcision.

PSI/Mexico Behavior Change Communications Manager Ricardo Román arranged a visit for journalists and PSI staff to Reclusorio Preventivo Oriente, a prison in Mexico City with 11,305 inmates. The group observed PSI/Mexico's program that trains prisoners to be peer educators in HIV prevention so they can in turn help change risky behaviors among other inmates.

Read the New York Times article about the prison program.

Read BBC News' coverage of the prison visit.

Listen to a BBC report on the visit

PSI/Mexico targets at-risk groups to share healthy behavior messages and strategies. Outreach worker Jaime Carmen Pena visits male and female commercial sex workers in Mexico City neighborhoods to distribute condoms, promote consistent condom use and lubricants, and stress the importance of regular HIV testing.

Listen to the National Public Radio report on the program

The first of two PSI conference sessions, What Does It Mean to “Be a Man?” Insight into Men's Experiences from Around the Globe, used four interactive stations to examine different notions of masculinity from around the world and how these perceptions affects an individual’s HIV risk. PSI collaborated with several partners to bring the session together.

• Gary Barker from Instituto Promundo in Brazil presented a silent cartoon and demonstrated how their project, Programa H, uses educational workshops, lifestyle campaigns, and other innovative approaches to challenge conceptions and create healthier norms of masculinity.
• Sussy Lungo and Jorge Rivas from PSI/PASMO in Central America revealed new constructs of masculinity and demonstrated how Central American men can be targeted with appropriate messages according to their personal construct.
• Salorne McDonald from PSI/Caribbean challenged participants to “walk in the footsteps of a Caribbean man” and showed how PSI makes safer sex messages sexy and empowering.
• The last station was on male circumcision. Provocative images of cultural and medical rituals around circumcision were shown, and PSI staff interviewed BBC reporter Kennedy Gondwe about his circumcision experience at a PSI facility in Zambia.

Follow the links to read more about how the concept of masculinity should inform HIV prevention programming:

• HEALTH: Survey shows no man is an Everyman
• SOUTH AFRICA: Focus on the "burden" of manhood

More than 120 people attended PSI’s second session, Comprehensive Condom Programming: So Much Potential, Yet So Little Progress. The session was sponsored by the UNAIDS Interagency Task Team on Comprehensive Condom Programming (CCP) (on which PSI sits). Deputy Country Representative for PSI/Zimbabwe Krishna Jafa and Daisy Nyamukapa of the United Nations Population Fund in Zimbabwe gave presentations. The panel of speakers included Svenn Grant from YMCA/Trinidad & Tobago, Antonia Parra Amelin from YWCA/Mexico, Musimbi Kanyoro from David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and Bruce Campbell of UNFPA/Zimbabwe. Key issues discussed included promoting condom use as a sexy rather than safe option; a lack of programs, especially in Africa, that address condom use among men who have sex with men; the idea that commodities alone are not the answer and that programs are challenged to not only influence demand, but also use; and how the public, private, and social marketing sectors can come together to ensure that condom needs at national levels are met.