The Power of Storytelling: What We Learned at Women Deliver 2019

This year over 6,000 people attended Women Deliver, the world’s largest conference on gender equality. World leaders, influencers, academics, journalists, activists – and Team EGPAF –gathered together in Vancouver from all corners of the globe!

Thanks to sponsorship from J&J Global Health, our delegates EGPAF Ambassador Josephine Nabukenya from Uganda, William Epane from Cameroon, and Dee Mphafi from Lesotho participated in the week-long conference by speaking on the Power Stage, presenting data on the impact of EGPAF’s Community of African Youth Advisors (CAYA), and getting inspired by the other game changers they met from around the world.

After an educational and inspiring week, we spoke with William, Dee, and Josephine about their favorite parts of Women Deliver 2019:

Team EGPAF: What surprised you most at Women Deliver this year?

Josephine: I was really happy to see how much involvement there was of men in the conference. They were not just attending to listen but to really commit to support women’s rights. As we ask for equal rights, it’s important to have the men in our society support women or else it may take longer, or even never happen if men are left behind.

Dee: The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funds a DREAMS program that helps girls develop into Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored, and Safe women. I was surprised to hear from PEPFAR’s Ambassador Deborah Birx that part of the DREAMS program is working with faith-based organizations.

From my perspective, religion has been a barrier for adolescent girls and young women seeking health services like contraceptives and HIV prevention messaging. But Ambassador Birx explained more clearly how DREAMS, PEPFAR and these faith-based organizations will work together to help keep girls educated and healthy.

What was one thing you learned at Women Deliver?

Dee: I learned that we as women have to stand together and not be competitive with each other. We need to stand together, empower one another, and help girls by mentoring them so that they also grow with that spirit of oneness and support. That way, we strive to become the best generation of women. Then we can continue this kind of support to help the next generations!

What inspired you the most throughout the week?

William: I have been amazed by all the hard work women around the world are doing. My favorite part was a talk held for fathers on how to educate their daughters to be empowered. I learned how I can better my actions and role as a male to lend support to the women in my community. Vancouver is also beautiful, and we really enjoyed the climate!

We are so grateful to our EGPAF young leaders for traveling to Vancouver to raise their voices in support of girls and women, who are most affected by HIV and AIDS. As we learned, the power of youth is critical to ending AIDS and creating the first AIDS-free generation. And it begins with sharing our stories, to help each other.

As Josephine shared on the Power Talk stage: “I am going to continue to use my power to share my story as a young person who has had HIV since birth. My story has two audiences. It has the HIV negative audience, and it calls out to them to stay HIV negative. But it also empowers the HIV positive audience to live meaningful lives.”

To watch Josephine’s Power Talk, scroll to 4:46:00 below. And check out all of our photo from Women Deliver here to see more of what we were up to in Vancouver!