Thursday Video: Vladyk's 60-second cry

Elizabeth Hira is on the marketing team at the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

You might think that Vladyslav, a 13 year old boy living in an orphanage in Ukraine, would not have a lot in common with Bill Gates.

But you'd be wrong.

Both have their work showcased this week at the 18th International AIDS Conference, and while Bill Gates is busy trying to cure the disease, Vladyk and many other young people like him are doing the incredible work of living with it.

Today's video is a rough one. Vladyk knows-- he calls it "hard beat."

Over 5 days last month, 15 teenagers gathered at UN House in Kiev, Ukraine and worked with professionals to learn exactly how to tell their stories about HIV/AIDS through film. Through a UNICEF supported project called "OneMinutesJr." Vladyk and his cohort give us a 60 second snapshot of their lives. Some are fraught with reflection; others remind us that HIV doesn't have to mean the end of joy. All of work is being featured this week at the International AIDS Conference.

The films are about Ukrainian teenagers, but they really tell a global story of young people faced with AIDS: there's isolation and fear, but there's defiant joy and, not surprisingly, youthful hope.

In Ukraine alone, about half a million people are HIV positive, and behind that statistic are half a million stories. It's staggering, but if these videos are any indication, each of those stories lends an important perspective on a world with HIV, and hopefully, a future without it.

Take a moment to watch even a few of them ... it just takes 60 second each.