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“A Day of AIDS” brings the urgency
of AIDS home
Students and visitors to the University of Victoria are in for a shock
next week: From November 21 to December 3, the lawn across from the main
library will be transformed into a graveyard of 8,000 red and white crosses.
Community and University AIDS and poverty activists are creating a moving
tribute to the 8,000 people who die from HIV/AIDS every day. Called “A
Day of AIDS”, this public art installation is a powerful way to
communicate the drastic scale of the AIDS crisis and to educate Victoria
about the interconnection between global poverty, gender inequality, and
HIV/AIDS.
The crosses were first installed on Salt Spring Island in 2004 for World
AIDS Day, by a local group called SOLID, the Salt Spring Organization
for Life Improvement and Development. SOLID’s focus is on AIDS in
Africa; at the 2004 exhibit 6,000 crosses were planted to represent the
75% of all AIDS deaths that take place in Africa. Victoria’s “A
Day of AIDS” presentation marks the beginning of a Canada-wide campaign,
in which schools, businesses and organizations across Canada are invited
to bring the cross installation to their communities. This culmination
of this traveling installation will be in Toronto at the International
AIDS Conference in August of 2006.
“The governments of the world should be able to see something
like this, if this is what it takes to make people see that AIDS is a
serious issue, that populations are being wiped out,” says
Minneh Kamau, who was present at the inaugural “A Day of AIDS”
last year on Salt Spring. “I read the statistics in the
paper, and I just thought, oh, 8,000 people. And it didn’t occur
to me that those were lots of people until I came and saw these crosses.”
Kamau, who has founded an organization called SAN FAN, which aims to prevent
HIV/AIDS through education and to empower people through personal storytelling,
is a passionate advocate for meaningful action in the face of this global
pandemic. “This exhibit is a message that is being spoken
by the dead. They are calling back to us … the message is that we
must do something.”
“The goal of this installation is to get people to think,
and to act,” says SOLID member Gary McNutt. “Our
government has made promises to reduce global poverty by half, and to
seriously address AIDS by providing universal treatment. These are great
goals, but we need to see action. Instead of sticking to his promises
to increase Canada’s foreign aid to 0.7% of our GNP, Paul Martin
is now saying we can’t afford it. That’s ridiculous –
we’re the only country in the G8 that has a budgetary surplus. If
we can’t do it, who will?”
In spite of confessing to be “weary beyond weariness” of the
way the international community has dodged its responsibilities, visionary
AIDS activist and Massey lecturer Stephen Lewis remains determined to
live in hope. “Even when you can’t break through at
the cerebral levels of cosmic government … you can often break through
at a community level, where change is so often possible, and effective,”
says Lewis. His organization, the Stephen Lewis Foundation, is dedicated
to funding and supporting grassroots projects that provide resources to
small, front-line groups that make effective use of comparatively small
amounts of money.
Visitors to the cross installation are being invited to get involved;
half of the donations raised from “A Day of AIDS” will go
to Lewis’ Foundation. Opportunities to get involved and volunteer
with community groups and with organizations that place volunteers overseas
are listed on a hand-out available on site. Visitors are also encouraged
to write to their members of parliament to remind them of the urgency
of meeting Canada’s commitments to the Millennium Development Goals,
which include cutting poverty in half by 2015.
“The link between poverty and AIDS cannot be overstated”,
says Laura Hadwin of VIDEA’s Global Youth. “Here in
Canada, we have the highest rate of infection in the developed world in
Vancouver’s impoverished downtown east side. And the imbalance on
a global scale is incredible. 95% of AIDS deaths happen in the third world,
because of lack of access to health care and lack of proper nutrition.”
Deaths from AIDS further compound the problem of poverty, continues Laura,
as “teachers, doctors, farmers and caregivers are dying
faster than they can be replaced, causing whole societies to fall into
economic and social chaos.”
“A Day of AIDS” will be officially opened to the public on
November 21. At 6 pm that day, “Women of Distinction” award
winner Minneh Kamau will invite visitors to light candles and place them
beside the crosses, making a ribbon of light in the middle of the field.
Candles will be available on site for a $5 donation. Following the vigil,
the Social Justice Film Series will be presenting the film, “The
Power is the People”, a moving chronicle of the efforts of grassroots
volunteers from Salt Spring Island who travel to southern Africa to work
with AIDS affected families to develop sustainable solutions. Following
the film a panel of speakers, including filmmaker and SOLID founder Gary
McNutt, will lead an open forum on media and its role in the fight against
HIV/AIDS.
“A Day of AIDS” will remain in place for 12 days. On December
1, World AIDS Day, the crosses will provide a focal point for campus World
AIDS Day events, culminating in a 5 pm closing ceremony with speakers
from Vancouver Island AIDS groups, People Living With AIDS, and various
campus international development organizations. The crosses will also
be included in events related to the National Day of Remembrance and Action
on Violence Against Women. Graduate student Catherine Etmanski of Victoria’s
Make Poverty History Coalition explains, “The AIDS pandemic
disproportionately affects women, for a number of socio-economic and cultural
reasons, but particularly because of women’s frequent inability
to negotiate safe sexual practices. This is undoubtedly a form of violence
against women. This installation commemorates violence against women at
a local level, and draws connections to the global context as well.”
Etmanski continues, “Each cross symbolizes a human life
lost – real people with hopes, dreams, aspirations, and a family
who loved them…I attended a number of funerals while working in
Botswana in 2001. It is absolutely heart-breaking to witness row after
row of crosses with very recent dates.”
It’s experiences like this that “A Day of AIDS” intends
to communicate, reaching beyond the rhetoric and bringing the message
home: help.
Contacts:
Minneh Kamau, SAN-FAN
(250) 661-7357
contact @ SAN-FAN.com
Stephen Lewis, the Stephen Lewis Foundation
(416) 533-9292
info @ stephenlewisfoundation.org.
Catherine Etmanski, Social Justice Film Series and Public Dialogues
Faculty of Education’s Department of Leadership Studies and Graduate
Students’ Society
(250) 472-5164
etmanski @ uvic.ca
Gary McNutt, Salt Spring Organization for Life Improvement & Development
(250) 537-9925
g_mcnutt @ yahoo.ca | info@solidsaltspring.com
Victoria Make Poverty History Coalition
Elizabeth Wallace c/o VIDEA
(250) 385-2333
ewallace @ videa.ca
Laura Hadwin, VIDEA’s Global Youth
lhadwin @ hotmail.com
