12 Year Old Girl a Champion for HIV Awareness

It is pretty nerve-wracking for most people to speak in front of large audiences, especially when that audience consists of notable researchers and scientists, the United Nations Secretary General and the President of Mexico; but this is exactly what one twelve year old did at the 17th International AIDS Conference held in Mexico City in August 2008.  Keren Dunaway has done more at twelve years old than most people hope to do in a lifetime, and being a pre-teen with the HIV stigma has done nothing to slow her down.

Keren has known she has been afflicted with HIV since she was only five years old. Both her parents have HIV and they used pictures to describe to her how their family all had the same virus. Only seven years later, Keren is known throughout the Latin American community as a strong champion for AIDS awareness speaking at schools and editing a children’s magazine that focuses on HIV. Speaking at the International Conference, she began, “The boys and girls who live with HIV are here and we are growing up with many goals. We want to be artists, teachers, doctors — even get married and have kids. … But achieving these goals will only be possible when we receive the attention we need, when we are guaranteed the medicines that we need, when we are accepted in schools.”

In Keren’s region, almost two millions people are infected with HIV and over a quarter of those are 15 years old or younger. This younger generation of HIV infections is usually a result of transmission from the mother. In 2004, only 10 percent of infected pregnant women were receiving the medical treatments they needed to help prevent transmission of the virus to their unborn children. While that number has increased to 36 percent today, there is still a great need for education and medical enhancements in the region. In a nation where so many children are innocent victims of the virus, Keren’s voice and far outreach has been a beacon of hope.

As a younger child, Keren dealt with the scorn of her classmates who refused to include her at playtime because of her infection. Once she started traveling with her parents to speaking engagements on behalf of “Llaves,” an advocacy organization for AIDS, to schools across the region, Keren began to come to terms with her disease and find her own voice. As she became more open and more vocal about her disease, she realized she was able to help other children who were going through the same issues she had.

A year ago, she developed her own magazine called “Llavecitas” that is geared towards children with HIV and distributed six times a year to thousands of children across Honduras. Keren writes weekly updates encouraging her audience to stay positive about their futures and focus on their schoolwork. Now a popular student at her school, she says excitedly, “Sometimes I have so much fun that I forget I have this” virus.