Spring Break
Global AIDS Campaign reaches out to Brandeis students
by Aaron Press Taylor
News | 12/4/07
Posted online at 10:51 PM EST on 12/3/07
/ Last updated at 4:21 AM EST on 12/3/07
Rainbows, hearts, musical notes and pictures commemorating eight different AIDS victims covered a quilt laid out in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium last Tuesday evening as part of AIDS Awareness Week on campus.
The Brandeis chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign displayed one square from a 52-mile-long quilt of remembrance distributed among various campaign chapters nationwide.
"The quilt puts a human face to all people who have died," SGAC co-president Lauren Maramara '09 said.
The national Names Project Foundation provided the Brandeis SGAC chapter with the quilt square display, a central piece of the Awareness Week, which led up to World AIDS Day last Saturday.
As Common Threads, a documentary about the personal stories behind the quilt, played on repeat over a four-hour period, students passing by stopped to sign the quilt's guest book, which continues to accrue signatures and is held by the Names Foundation.
"A lot of passers-by have stopped to see it," said Samantha Greenberg '10, whose interest in AIDS awareness began in high school. "AIDS needs to get more attention than it has in the past."
Brandeis' SGAC chapter has grown rapidly since 2006, when the entire campus rallied around the campaign to bring free HIV testing to the Health Services Center. The group holds weekly meetings, occasional lectures and periodic candy gram sales. At the South Asian Students Association event MELA, SGAC collected donations for the HIV/AIDS sector of ICDDR, B, The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh. This unit provides HIV testing and counseling services, and helps impoverished clients acquire treatment for opportunistic infections.
Newly elected SGAC National Liaison Emily Frost '10 added that SGAC has also donated to the Kenya AIDS fund. Over the last 2 1/2 years, donation drives at Brandeis alone have raised $1,400 to provide AIDS orphans in Kenya with food, clothing and resources for education.
The Brandeis chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign displayed one square from a 52-mile-long quilt of remembrance distributed among various campaign chapters nationwide.
"The quilt puts a human face to all people who have died," SGAC co-president Lauren Maramara '09 said.
The national Names Project Foundation provided the Brandeis SGAC chapter with the quilt square display, a central piece of the Awareness Week, which led up to World AIDS Day last Saturday.
As Common Threads, a documentary about the personal stories behind the quilt, played on repeat over a four-hour period, students passing by stopped to sign the quilt's guest book, which continues to accrue signatures and is held by the Names Foundation.
"A lot of passers-by have stopped to see it," said Samantha Greenberg '10, whose interest in AIDS awareness began in high school. "AIDS needs to get more attention than it has in the past."
Brandeis' SGAC chapter has grown rapidly since 2006, when the entire campus rallied around the campaign to bring free HIV testing to the Health Services Center. The group holds weekly meetings, occasional lectures and periodic candy gram sales. At the South Asian Students Association event MELA, SGAC collected donations for the HIV/AIDS sector of ICDDR, B, The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh. This unit provides HIV testing and counseling services, and helps impoverished clients acquire treatment for opportunistic infections.
Newly elected SGAC National Liaison Emily Frost '10 added that SGAC has also donated to the Kenya AIDS fund. Over the last 2 1/2 years, donation drives at Brandeis alone have raised $1,400 to provide AIDS orphans in Kenya with food, clothing and resources for education.
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