As guitar music coincided with African drumbeats, students from
all over campus came together in Bruin Plaza on Thursday, aiming to
spread knowledge about HIV/AIDS.
The Student Welfare Commission, along with many other student
groups, hosted World AIDS Day, an event designed to educate people
about HIV/AIDS in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease
both on campus and abroad.
The focus of this year’s World AIDS Day was to raise
awareness locally as well as shed light on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in
sub-Saharan Africa, where, according to statistics by the Joint
United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, nearly 23 million adults are
living with the disease.
To kick off the rally, three processions of students made their
way from DeNeve Plaza, Schoenberg Hall and the Court of Sciences,
converging at Bruin Plaza just as the bells of Powell Library
struck noon.
“We really look like one man ““ one man today coming
together to fight this pandemic,” UCLA AIDS Institute
ambassador Adam Stern said over a microphone on McClure Stage.
Stern sings lead vocals for The Grizzly Peak, who performed at the
event.
As he spoke, the marchers pushed toward the stage, many wearing
white “Knowledge is Power” T-shirts and linking arms or
holding blue, green and black signs.
Members of Gonja Dreams, a group of African drummers who
accompanied the marchers to Bruin Plaza, performed together in
front of the crowd before turning the microphone over to
Undergraduate Students Association Council President Jenny
Wood.
“We are here to take action,” Wood said to the
crowd.
Other events included free HIV testing offered by two mobile
testing units, workshops and symposia presenting global
perspectives of the pandemic held at the John Wooden Center, and a
performance called “Mourning Dances” at the Glorya
Kaufman Hall.
In addition to bringing together American and African cultures
through music and art, this year’s World AIDS Day united
several different groups on and off campus “for such a worthy
cause,” said Kathleen Rooney, a fourth-year anthropology
student.
At the rally, students from organizations manned tables offering
a variety of information about HIV/AIDS.
Students also initiated a call-in drive to convince local, state
and national legislators to allocate more funding for the
development of microbicides, a topical treatment that prevents the
spread of HIV without the use of condoms.
In the wake of the UC-wide AIDS Research Program released
Wednesday, which estimated that over 150,000 Californians are
currently living with the disease, many people voiced concern about
the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS.
“It’s scary. It’s always been a distant
problem in Africa that you hear about, but now it’s come to
the home front,” said Britta Grayman, a first-year English
student. Grayman planned to get tested for HIV for the first time,
even though she did not consider herself at risk.
“Sometimes we just don’t want to see what frightens
us,” said Quinn Beckham, a member of CharityTreks, an
organization that puts on a 425-mile bike ride each year to raise
money for AIDS research. Beckham tested positive for HIV 10 years
ago, but credited successful education and research campaigns in
the past that “allow (him) to be here today.”
“It’s really neat that the UCLA AIDS Institute
doesn’t just do medical research, but it also involves the
students,” he said. “They’re trying to change a
generation ““ that’s where it starts. We have to protect
our kids, our youth.”
Derrick Nichols, a third-year world arts and cultures student,
believes many college students don’t perceive HIV/AIDS as a
problem: “(Many students) think they’re invincible, but
there are a lot of students on campus that are (HIV-positive) that
you may not even realize.”
Nichols has friends who are HIV-positive, and said there is
still a stigma surrounding the disease that may discourage people
from talking about it with others.
Some students feel that events promoting education, such as
World AIDS Day, help to correct misconceptions.
“The more awareness there is, the less stigmatized the
disease becomes,” said Shadi Yaghoubian, a fourth-year
physiological science student and volunteer at the UCLA Mobile
Clinic, which offers free health care, including HIV testing, to
homeless people.
While the purpose of the World AIDS Day “I Know” and
“Knowledge is Power” campaign was to inform the public,
a few students saw a need to take things further.
Harsh Shah, a second-year communication studies student, said
there is a lack of student force on major issues, and though there
were more people at the rally than he expected, more must be done
on both local and national levels.
Ragani Sarma, third-year biology student and director of the
AIDS Awareness Committee, agreed.
“It takes students like us … to actually go out and
become activists,” Sarma said.
With reports from Derek Lipkin, Bruin senior staff.