Students come together for AIDS day

Despite cold and bitter winds, members of the Muslim Students' Association set up camp on the Diag early yesterday morning for World AIDS Day. Their red tent and matching red ribbons were symbols of AIDS awareness and compassion for those living with the illness.

World AIDS Day promotes "compassion, awareness, and support," said RC sophomore Aimee Nimeh. There are a number of organizations nationwide planning activities to mark the day, said Nimeh, who helped to organize the Diag activities.

"I thought it was interesting that it was international," said LSA sophomore Nora Mahmoud. "There are a lot of AIDS cases around the world."

DANIEL CASTLE/Daily Saima Kahn, a member of the Muslim Students' Association, puts a red AIDS ribbon on Heidi Arraf as she passes through the Diag.

AIDS has become an all-too-familiar angel of death since it was first discovered more than a decade ago, causing 357,598 deaths in the United States alone, said University Hospitals Chief Internal Medicine resident Daniel Kaul. There are currently 21.8 million adults living with HIV/AIDS in the world.

"The situation is very different in developed countries versus undeveloped countries," Kaul said.

Besides increasing awareness of the disease, campus organizers said the national goal of World AIDS Day was to raise money to aid in the search for a cure for the disease and for the establishment of AIDS treatment centers.

"Hopefully people will support (World AIDS Day) ... not just by wearing a ribbon," Mahmoud said.

In addition to dispatching red ribbons and hot chocolate, the Muslim Students' Association also created and distributed brochures with AIDS statistics and facts.

"We made brochures because people know that AIDS exists, but we're still lacking scientific knowledge about what AIDS is all about," said Engineering graduate student Rasha Stino.

Islamic faith teaches activism and service in society, as well as abstinence from sex before marriage, Stino said. Unprotected sex is a high risk factor in contracting HIV.

"We're hoping people will consider waiting (for sex) because they are worth waiting for," Stino said. "We're hoping people will consider moral action."

Stino said she also hopes to see students playing an active role in AIDS education. "We hope that more organizations and students on campus will be encouraged to join in the fight against AIDS," she said.

Alliance for AIDS Awareness is a student group that started this semester with the class Sociology 389 - Sociology of HIV/AIDS.

"We're a section of Project Community," said LSA senior Jennifer Yetwin. "We established Alliance for AIDS Awareness to promote education - one of the ways that we're doing this are our activities starting with World AIDS Day," Yetwin said.

University Health Service provided the group with informational pamphlets and condoms. "We could choose what sort of volunteerism we wanted to do and we found out that we could work with UHS to plan World AIDS Day," Yetwin said.

Members of Alliance for AIDS Awareness will be passing out condoms at bars and cafes throughout the week. They also have organized a panel discussion set for tomorrow in Anderson Room D of the Michigan Union at 7:30 p.m, featuring counselors and educators.

"Wanting to educate the community was one of our main goals," said LSA senior Lisa Goldman, a member of Alliance for AIDS Awareness. "We had no idea where it would take us when we first started."

12-02-97