Schools AIDS Day
|
| Schools AIDS Day is an invitation for school children to
think about others struggling to live with HIV/AIDS by focussing
on what happened to Australian schoolgirl - Eve Van Grafhorst
- who died from AIDS when she was just 11 years of age. |
 |
Left: Flight Attendant Leeanne Langridge and First Officer John
Gray with Air New Zealand National's youngest flight attendant,
Eve van Grafhorst.
|
Invitation 2005 - The Australian School
in Malawi
This year your help would be very welcome as we
build a combined primary/secondary school for 300 children,
many of them AIDS orphans in a remote village in Malawi,
Africa. It'll be finished before Christmas but will need
ongoing help.
Donations can be sent to:
The Australian AIDS Fund Incorporated,
PO Box 1347,
Frankston, Victoria, 3199, Australia.
Have
a look at the latest pictorial report.
|
SCHOOLS AIDS DAY 2004
This event is being listed in the Calendar for HIV/AIDS
RELATED EVENTS in the region published by the UNESCO Asia-Pacific
Regional Centre for Education
Australia-wide - July 16, 2004
An AIDS awareness event in schools recalling one Australian
child's brave national battle against HIV discrimination,
Eve van Grafhorst, and observing her birthday, July 17 on
nearest school day
Thanks Victoria & Queensland
- Well done!
|
 |
|
The World Edition of BBC News is carrying a superb series on the biology
of AIDS covering the Hiv virus, Infection, Early Stages and as AIDS
Develops.
Global HIV infecting youth - 1 every 14 seconds
- October, 2003
U.N. State of World Population Report
To read, Click Here
Schools AIDS Day in Victoria, 2003
- Love: the vital ingredient
To read, Click Here
July, 2003 News update
A Special 21st birthday! - and a warning. To read, Click
Here
Message From A Princess
To mark Eve's 21st birthday, her mother Gloria has released a treasured
letter she received from the Princess of Wales.
Young heroes & heroines
|
There have been some important rainbows that have shone out in
the global history of HIV/AIDS, young boys and girls who've not
only endured the ravages of the disease and lost their young lives
in the process but whose bravery and courage have helped governments
to alter course...to intervene...and also tackle stigma and discrimination
much more vigorously.
* Ryan White a young American boy was one such example, who finally
numbered 5 American Presidents among his friends.
For his story Click Here
* Eve van Grafhorst the first Australian girl to be infected by
HIV via a blood transfusion is another example, fighting hysteria
and apprehension with laughter and hugs (the inspiration for the
establishment of our own organisation).
* Nkosi Johnson the young South African hero who galvanised the
world by his moving global appeal for tolerance before his life
slipped away as well. For a glimpse into Nkosi's inspirational
life and what's since grown out of it, Click
Here
|
|
Spotlight now on India
There are others too, not in the spotlight, who've added their strength
to the cause.
Now, in India, there's the present case of Bency(7) and her brother
Benson (5) who live in Kerala State. Both lost their parents to
AIDS and had been trying to join a school for the past 2 years!
Benson and Bency in from the cold, becoming faces of India's
battle against stigma and discrimination. Click
Here for the story
|
APJ. Abdul Kalam
President of India
|
|
Within a few days of receiving our request, President Kalam
kindly sent us this photograph of himself with the children and
their grandfather, for which we are very grateful. It sends a powerful
message as to how stigma on a national scale may be alleviated by
so boldly involving such targetted children in HIV/AIDS Awareness
campaigns.
We commend the President's action and the courage of those children
and their families to all nations struggling to cope with discrimination
which is so much responsible for the ongoing global spread of the
disease.
|
|
The Australian AIDS Fund has sent special
messages to the President of India and India's Union
Minister for Health - Click
Here to read them
For the history of our earlier involvement - Click
Here
|
|
February, 2003
Schools AIDS Day 2003 gets nod!
The new Director of the Catholic Education Office in Melbourne, Ms Susan
Pascoe, has confirmed that she will be continuing with this AIDS Awareness
initiative of ours again this year. Our public thanks to her and her staff
and all participating schools.
For the latest update concerning HIV/AIDS throughout the world, please
also refer to the Noticboards section in
the News area.
Welcome to 2003!
Schools AIDS Day 2003
Again we invite you all, especially principals, schoolteachers, and
students to seek to mark Schools AIDS Day this year as close as you
can to July 17th, Eve's birthday.
In Victoria, the Catholic Education Office has been running the event
for us here for the past couple of years and we're looking forward to
them doing the same again this year. Please don't hesitate to contact
them with any queries you may have.
The income from the gold coin collections (as the day is generally
marked by optional dress in return for the gold coin) goes to support
Catholic AIDS Ministry work in Melbourne.
Elsewhere, outside Victoria, we invite every other school and parish
throughout Australia to also join in and be involved.
You can draw on resources published in this section as a means of liturgy
assistance and vary according to your particular preference.
We also invite all participating schools outside Victoria to also take
up a gold coin collection on the day chosen to mark Schools AIDS Day.
Those monies can be sent to us at:
The Australian AIDS Fund Incorporated,
PO Box 1347,Frankston,Victoria, 3199,
for which our official receipts will be issued.
We will use the money to especially help provide basic AIDS care needs
among our geographic neighbours with whom we are associated.
Those wanting more information can contact the AAFI's president, Brian
Haill, on 03 9770 9210 or may email him on bhaill@bigpond.net.au
Your support and involvement would be very much appreciated. We seek to
continually publish the needs of those we seek to help.
|
