Don't let old people tell you what to do. This is Elton John's message to young people, who he said yesterday were the crucial cog in the fight against HIV and Aids.

"If we want HIV programmes to work for young people we can't tell them what to do or think. We need to nurture their voices. Don't let an older generation lecture you. Make us listen to you. Tell us what your needs are and what skills and services you need, and we'll help you," he said at the 21st International Aids conference in Durban. "The truth is that young people have always been a voice of change - from all walks of life and all circumstances. Empowered young people have urged us to push past the status quo and to reach for dreams that are big and bold. Right here in South Africa, young people used their voices and actions to help bring down apartheid and give birth to a new nation. It is precisely that youthful energy, courage and commitment we need to find the end of this disease," he said.John, an Aids activist through the Elton John Aids Foundation, said US teenager Ryan White, who got infected through a blood transfusion, turned him into an activist. "When I attended his funeral I was a drug addict and an alcoholic. Six months later I was sober because I knew my life was wrong and I knew that Ryan was trying to tell me something, that I should step up to the plate and do something for all these people who were dying from this terrible disease," he said.John called on young people to find other people to look up to and to draw their inspiration from."The fact of the matter is young people are being left out and being left behind in the Aids fight. It needs to stop. It needs to stop here and now."Yesterday John was awarded the Asijiki Award for courage and initiative for his support of the call to legalise sex work...