AIDS activist to meet with African child soldiers.

Byline: Teale Karow-Reynolds

FITCHBURG - John Chittick, a volunteer with TeenAids-Peer Corps, will leave for Africa Nov. 16 on his next major outreach to train African youths to be peer leaders in their communities.

Mr. Chittick's "Heart of Africa" AIDS walk is part of his continuing series of global efforts that he said have already taken him to 80 countries, where he has personally trained 300,000 peer leaders since 1998.

On his walk, Mr. Chittick, a Fitchburg resident, plans to visit Sudan, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Kenya. He said he will visit jungle outposts where boy soldiers work. Those five countries have extremely high AIDS/HIV rates, he said, and it is estimated that one of every three youths is HIV-positive but unaware of the condition.

According to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, 50 percent of all new cases of HIV occur among youths 12 to 24 years of age. It is also estimated that in 2007 more than 1.5 million adults and children died of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to figures provided by Mr. Chittick.

"Young people in Africa deserve to hear the truth about the pandemic that is killing their friends and neighbors," he said. "I believe that Americans must help in this battle before a million more die."

Daily video reports from Mr. Chittick's trip will be posted on YouTube and on the Web site www.teenaids.org.

To honor World Aids Day on Dec. 1, Mr. Chittick said he will host a global Web cast for youths that will originate from Kinshasa, Congo, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 1.