World AIDS Week Events Promote Awareness in Community

Students and faculty gathered together Thursday night in the Student Union at the University of Connecticut in honor of World AIDS week.

The night featured music and ended with a vigil outside the university library, where students placed a red awareness ribbon on the university seal and held a moment of silence.

"HIV and AIDS is still affecting so many people," said Joleen Nevers, the Health Education Coordinator at UConn's Health Education Office. "We're really encouraging others to get tested this year."

The Health Education Office holds a week of events every year to commemorate World AIDS Day on December 1. This year, students and faculty stressed getting tested.

The office offers free, rapid and anonymous testing as well as free STD clinics and plenty of informational material. Nevers also said they planned a Condom-a-Thon for Friday of World AIDS Week, where members of the Health Education Office will teach others how to correctly use a condom and other forms of safe sex. 

Nevers said the office respects all safe sexual preferences, however, including abstinence. 

"It was really important for everyone to come out this year," said Amanda Sullivan, World AIDS Week coordinator for the Health Education Office. 

Sullivan said knowing how to practice safe sex proves a valuable skill, no matter your level of sexual activity. 

"If someone can use the information later on, it's valuable," she said. 

World AIDS Week also featured "Art4AIDS," an art gallery compiled by students, staff and faculty to help support those who lost someone to the disease.

Red artwork filled one room in the Student Union and featured ribbons, collages, messages, portraits and photography. The gallery symbolizes the many ways in which HIV and AIDS affects people, according to students at the event. 

"Some people might think this doesn't affect them, but it's still an issue," said Liberty Pandey, a graduate student and World AIDS Week supporter. "People are sometimes divided or in denial about HIV and AIDS, but it's a reality."

Students who attended the event and helped coordinate UConn's World AIDS Week wore red and passed out red glow sticks to people arriving at the art gallery for the vigil. 

The message, above all, remains awareness.

"It just doesn't disappear because you don't have it," said Haley McCarthy, an UConn alum who worked for the Health Education Office for six years. "It's a great cause and it's getting bigger every year. Obviously I keep coming back."