Youth Agents of Change to Stop Tuberculosis

The IDB Youth Program (BID Juventud del Banco Inter-American de Desarrollo) and the pro-social campaign MTV Grita's Youth as Agents of Change began in October 2006 during the MTV Latin America Awards, which were produced under the banner "We All Are Agents of Change". A special segment was dedicated to recognise youth community leaders and their contributions to development. In addition, the MTV Agent of Change Award was given to Colombian celebrity Juanes for his contributions to peace and social change. Youth were invited to share their development projects by submitting a story online. More than 7,000 stories were received on a wide range of topics, such as environmental protection, microenterprise, health, housing, and art and culture. Six hundred of them were uploaded to the website; from those, 25 were selected from 7 different countries to be filmed and produced as 3-minute segments for transmission on MTV Latin America and local TV stations. The selected Agents of Change have also become part of the Youth Venture Latin America Network, an Ashoka initiative that provides technical assistance and seed capital to young social entrepreneurs.

In the 2009 spinoff summarised here, one of the Agents of Change - footballer Luis Figo - joined with MTV to inspire youth across the region to take on the role of agents of change to stop tuberculosis. On July 1 2009, MTV Latin America launched a 5-minute special report covering the 3rd Stop TB Partners Forum, which was held in March in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This report features an interview in which MTV reporter Ilana Sod visits Figo in Milan to discuss his role as an Ambassador of the Stop TB Partnership. Click here to view the report at la Comunidad MTV Agentes de Cambio in MySpace. In addition, Figo starred in a one-minute spot that ran for 3 weeks on MTV Latin America.

Figo has been serving as a Stop TB Ambassador since January 2008. A World TB Day poster campaign featuring Figo was launched in March 2008, soon followed by the release of a comic book featuring Figo as the main character. In Luis Figo and the World Tuberculosis Cup [PDF], Figo and his fellow players (teen-aged girls and boys) together win a match against a team of tuberculosis germs. The comic book was launched as an animated cartoon, which can be viewed in its French-language version here. Organisers plan to broadcast it widely around the world in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

All of Figo's videos are available on Stop TB's YouTube channel.

Health, Youth.

According to organisers, TB kills 5,000 people around the world people every day, and nearly 2 million people per year.

MTV Networks Inc. owns and operates MTV Latin America, Nickelodeon Latin America, Vh1 Latin America, Viacom Networks Brazil, and the digital channels of MTV Networks. Spanish and Portuguese versions of MTV, Vh1, and Nickelodeon are viewed in more than 20 countries across Latin America. MTV Networks Latin America also connects with its audience in an interactive manner through its web pages, its pages for broadband users, and its online communities of musicians and music lovers.

The Stop TB Partnership is an international health partnership whose secretariat is housed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

BID Juventud is a programme that promotes active participation in development projects by the youth of Latin America and the Caribbean by facilitating communication between young people and their governments, the private sector, and civil society so that youth can express their opinions and actively contribute to social change.