Schools AIDS Day, 2004

AIDS Victims Remembered

Students at Avila College in Mount Waverley gathered for a special ceremony to mark School AIDS Day in September.

A special guest was former student, Alischa Ross, who has devoted much of her time to keeping the AIDS issue in the public mindset. Alischa, who has started up an organisation called YEAH (Youth Empowerment Against HIV/AIDS), has lost both her mother and her baby sister to the disease. Her stepfather, who was HIV positive for 20 years, also recently died.

Alischa, 24, told the gathering at Avila College it was important to keep the focus on youth and on the mainstream public. "It is really important to target certain groups," she said.

"It should be a whole-community issue, not just for people who have AIDS."

Alischa said an art exhibition, which will coincide with World AIDS Day on December 1, is being organised at the Melbourne Museum in the Carlton Gardens from November 23 to December 5. The theme is The World We Live In.

About 40 Australian artists will have works on display, including photography, painting and sculpture. Alischa said the primary focus of the event was not to raise funds, but to alert people to the fact "HIV/AIDS is still a very real problem".

Good too this year to welcome Queensland's involvement. Our special thanks to Chantelle Giles for introducing the event to Queensland through the Ipswich Girls Grammar School which also staged a Free Dress Day and sold Red Ribbons.

This awareness involvement is vital for all schools to take on board and we thank all those principals, teachers, parents and students who were involved this year.

Involvement can mean so much...it can prove to be a lifeline!

But see for yourself by reading the story of the two good Samaritans in India and see what we're doing to help an AIDS orphanage in poverty stricken Malawi. That's just part of our work - and we have no paid staff.

Mrs Jenny Berry (IGGS Deputy Headmistress), Chantelle Giles, and helpmate, Lina Ma