Recognising the need for adolescent girls and young women to actively participate and lead in the HIV response, ATHENA has developed an evolving mentorship strategy, that includes key elements of:

• Mentorship and institutional support from ATHENA
• Peer mentorship among young women living with HIV
• Inter-generational mentorship
• Cross-movement mentorship.

Through the Young Women’s Leadership Initiative (YWLI) ATHENA has developed spaces and strategies to create and support meaningful engagement in the HIV response, through providing to girls and young women:

• Support to engage in national, regional, and international policy fora
• Opportunities as country focal points to shape, inform and implement in-country project work
• Support to conduct and participate in community dialogues
• Opportunities on global reference groups alongside more experienced women living with HIV activists
• Advocating for and supporting the participation of young women in workshops, side events, panels and ATHENA-led spaces including the Women’s Networking Zone at international conferences.

An overview of our mentorship strategy and the history of the YWLI is available here. Posters detailing young women’s experiences and calls for action, from the YWLI at AIDS2012 are available here.