BACK in December I was invited to go to the House of Commons for World AIDS Day, as part of HIV360°’s campaign on the  online learning community, Rafi.ki. I was shocked into joining the campaign by the facts about HIV and AIDS.

I had to design a “Call To Action”. This was simply a picture, image, video, anything like that, that told the Government what should be done next in the AIDS crisis.

My call was a Poster that had 30 years of HIV/AIDS written in the middle with a red ribbon as the “0” and, along the ribbon, I called for: access for treatment to all; clean equipment for all; better sex education for children and elimination of discrimination. My call was one of the winners and it gave me the opportunity to go to Parliament.

The Rafi.ki. team made a big red ribbon to hold all of the calls to action from everyone that took part around the world. This is what we presented to the ministers at the House of Commons and they seemed very impressed!

Throughout the day we met countless MPs, such as Alan Whitehead (MP for my constituency), Alan Duncan, who is the Minister for International Development, and Caroline Lucas who is the Head of the Green Party, all wishing us luck with the campaign and all saying how great our work was.

The experience was amazing and is something that will stay with me forever – not many people can say they’ve been inside Parliament!

By James, Upper Shirley High School