Many youth activists worldwide believe that education is the cure for HIV/AIDS-and I am one of them. As an HIV/AIDS educator, I teach young people about abstinence and safer sex. I have spent countless hours volunteering at local public middle schools, informing students about the threat of HIV/AIDS in our community and world, and how to get involved in the fight against the horrendous epidemic.

Young HIV/AIDS educators have a common goal: spreading a message about HIV/AIDS prevention. Young people like me are important, because the epidemic continues to hit us hard: more than half of all new HIV infections worldwide occur in people aged 25 and under. And right now, an estimated 12.1 million youths aged 25 and under are living with HIV/AIDS, according to UNAIDS.

"The only thing that can stop this epidemic is education," says Marvelyn Brown, a 20-year-old Nashville, Tennessee, native who was tested HIV-positive on July 17, 2003. She was infected through unprotected sex with a man. Now she works at a local clinic, talking to young people who come in for testing and counseling others who have recently discovered they are positive. Her work is about her personal struggle and experience with the virus. She says that every young person needs to know that "HIV/AIDS does not discriminate."

I spoke with Brown and another young HIV/AIDS activist, Ainka Rhonda Wilson, to gear up for World AIDS Day on December 1st. Wilson, 24, is an HIV peer counselor for Georgia's AIDS Athens, which offers outreach, prevention, and support services for people with HIV/AIDS.

On December 1st, Wilson and others will increase awareness of how HIV/AIDS affects communities, and encourage people to get tested and learn the facts about HIV/AIDS. Wilson feels that "it is important to reach young people. [We need to] help them understand, through outreach and prevention, how HIV infection could affect and limit their adulthood."

Both Brown and Wilson encourage young people not only to protect themselves if they're going to have sex, but to get tested to know their HIV status. Spreading safer-sex and testing information are just two ways young people can work to end the epidemic.

"Young people: get tested. It's the most important decision you can make as a young adult," says Wilson. "Knowing your status, whether negative or positive, could affect your life greatly and may advocate much needed change in your current lifestyle."

"Do it for the people who love and care about you, if not for anything else," she adds. "Show them that you love them and care about them too, by taking your life and health seriously."

Ayana Stewart, 17, of Montclair, NJ, is an editor for SEX, ETC., the national newsletter and Web site written by teens, for teens, on sexual health issues, published by the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

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