November 21, 2008

WORLD AIDS DAY ACTIVITIES

An AIDS Awareness Pledge Drive, HIV testing and a march and rally are planned on the Davis Campus in observance of World AIDS Day.

Student interns of Health Education and Promotion are running the awareness pledge drive from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the three days before Thanksgiving, Nov. 24-26, outside Griffin Lounge in the Memorial Union.

The march and rally are scheduled on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day. The march around the Quad is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. at the flagpole on the MU’s south side. The rally is planned from noon to 1 p.m. on the MU’s south patio, with guest speaker Dennis Fleming, an AIDS survivor.

Health Education and Promotion, a unit of Student Health Services, is organizing the march and rally.

The Campus Community Book Project also is involved, because this year’s book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, centers on the organization Partners in Health and its fight against AIDS and other diseases in poor countries like Haiti.

Free, rapid testing for the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus is scheduled on three days the first week of December:

Dec. 1—9:30-11:30 a.m. and 1-3 p.m., Fielder Room, MU. Sponsored by Sacramento’s Center for AIDS Research, Education and Services, or CARES. This is confidential testing, which means the test result for each client is noted in his or her medical record, but cannot be released without the client’s permission, except as required by state or federal law.

Dec. 2­—1-4 p.m., Health Education and Promotion (behind the Cowell Student Health Center). This is anonymous testing, which means that no identifying information is collected and no records are kept. Testing like this is offered at HEP from 1 to 4 p.m. every Tuesday during fall, winter and spring quarters.

Dec. 4—1-4 p.m., Cross Cultural Center. Sponsored by the Yolo County Health Department. This is anonymous testing.

AIDS Memorial Quilt

Portions of the AIDS Memorial Quilt are on display through Dec. 2 in the second- and third-floor lobbies of the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. The quilt’s showing is sponsored by the Campus Community Book Project and the Yolo County Health Department.