World Aids Day
Friday was World Aids Day. The 1st of December has never meant a great deal to me until I spent the 1st of December 2005 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. For the first time i was faced with HIV/Aids as a cultural and social reality. Many, many lives, families & relationships have sucumbed, been altered, hindered or redirected because of the spread of virus that i confess to subconsciously (and probably with prejudice) believed to be mostly a lifestyle affliction. How niave i was, and in many respects still am.
its estimated that friday also brought with it the 45 000 000 person living with HIV/Aids - a counter can be found here [at the bottom of the page].
I walked the streets of Chiang Mai in 2005 with a banner saying - 'although we have aids, we're still human'. it would rate as one of the most evocative and empathetic actions i have taken. Although a lie, it reorientated me - it gave me the opportunity to take a glimpse into the humanity behind such suffering. As did the words of a cartoon caricature hanging on the wall of the Church of Christ, Thailand, Aids ministry unit, of a small child. it read:
I have Aids, please hug me i can't make you sick.
So...
12 months on:
at the Uniting Church Tertiary Students Advent Retreat, we took some time out to stop, reflect & meditate..
we prayed, annoited, empathised, grieved, and celebrated...
we hoped that through the immanant coming of a child we would glimpse something of the humanity that unites us all to a common story. whether we live with hiv/aids or not, are a refugee, or blinded by our affluence - there is no longer an 'other'.
its estimated that friday also brought with it the 45 000 000 person living with HIV/Aids - a counter can be found here [at the bottom of the page].
I walked the streets of Chiang Mai in 2005 with a banner saying - 'although we have aids, we're still human'. it would rate as one of the most evocative and empathetic actions i have taken. Although a lie, it reorientated me - it gave me the opportunity to take a glimpse into the humanity behind such suffering. As did the words of a cartoon caricature hanging on the wall of the Church of Christ, Thailand, Aids ministry unit, of a small child. it read:I have Aids, please hug me i can't make you sick.
So...
12 months on:
at the Uniting Church Tertiary Students Advent Retreat, we took some time out to stop, reflect & meditate..we prayed, annoited, empathised, grieved, and celebrated...
we hoped that through the immanant coming of a child we would glimpse something of the humanity that unites us all to a common story. whether we live with hiv/aids or not, are a refugee, or blinded by our affluence - there is no longer an 'other'.
the gathering:
Tonight we await a promise, a glimpse of certainty, a sign of hope…
Around this globe 45 million lives await a promise, a glimpse of certainty, a sign of hope…
Indiscriminate of race, culture or creed, among the infant and the elderly, the faithful and the faithless… a virus spreads
Indiscriminate of race, culture or creed, among the infant & the elderly, the faithful and the faithless… a promise is born
We await the child: a glimpse of certainty, a sign of hope…
Around this globe 45 million lives await a promise, a glimpse of certainty, a sign of hope…
Indiscriminate of race, culture or creed, among the infant and the elderly, the faithful and the faithless… a virus spreads
Indiscriminate of race, culture or creed, among the infant & the elderly, the faithful and the faithless… a promise is born
We await the child: a glimpse of certainty, a sign of hope…
posted by dw at 11:11 AM
1 Comments:
I was a volunteer at this year's XVI International AIDS Conference and I can honestly say that before attending the conference, I was completely uninformed and misinformed about HIV/AIDS. I think that until you see/work/live with people living with HIV/AIDS, you can't fully understand the impact of the epidemic. I now have a better understanding and think that it's important for bloggers like you and me, and the public at large, to relay our experiences to the masses and inform people about how HIV/AIDS affects our lives from a personal perspective.
I made a video in honor of World AIDS Day which was created using pictures I took at the conference. My focus in this video was to show expressions of the people working in and living with HIV/AIDS which included protest posters, stickers, affirmations, etc.
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