HIVAN / WCRP Forums - The HIVAN / WCRP Forum has a new partner - the US Consulate. They have come on board to help sponsor more workshops, as well as enabling our members and colleagues to meet with some of their very interesting visitors. We had more than 14 Forums this year, including five Youth Peace Forums, and a special celebration for International Peace Day. Every forum has 60 to 90 people participating and the YPFs have over 1000 young people at theirs.
16 Days of Activism - WCRP and HIVAN joined with Diakonia and the KZN survivors of violence for a very successful 16 Days of Activism against Violence against Women. The E-campaign of “Ring the Bell! Stop the Violence!” also saw articles in the press, a march, a wonderful T Shirt campaign at the City Hall preceded by a beautiful service at Emmanuel Cathedral .

HIVAN has a networking team dedicated to facilitating contact, communication and collaboration within and across the higher education, public, private, faith-based, non-government, and community-based sectors. HIVAN’s website, database, newsletters, reviews, and fora are all intended to enable and encourage these interactions. These fora are attended by community workers, volunteers and representatives from NGOs, FBOs, CBOs and government. They create a context for people and organisations to network and build contacts outside of the usual networks, raise knowledge levels and expose people to relevant and timely issues surrounding HIV and AIDS and creates dialogue between groups that don’t normally come in contact with each other. HIVAN’s networking fora are:

• The MRC KZN AIDS Forum
• Faith-Based Leaders and HIV/AIDS Researchers Forum
• Youth Fora
• Capacity-building Workshops
• Home-Based Care Workshops
• Contentious Issues Panel Discussion
• The HIVAN North and South Coast Communities Fora
• SHAPE
• The Public Health HIV/AIDS Journal Club Forum
• Internal HIVAN Forum

HIVAN partners with the World Conference on Religions for Peace (WCRP)/Interfaith Forum to host this forum series.

In the knowledge that empowering youth has become a pivotal goal in all programmes focused on HIV/AIDS and social change, the partnership between the WCRP and HIVAN introduced a new track of Youth Forum sessions for 2005, themed as: Learning Together for the Future”.