World AIDS Day

 “The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing. The hearing of the understanding is another.
But the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear, or to the mind.” – Chuang Tzu

Last Sunday, as part of the activities to mark World AIDS Day (December 1) there was an AIDS awareness march and painting of a mural. The Queen’s College Interact Club joined the march, to show our solidarity and to do our part as students to raise awareness about AIDS.
When discussing HIV/AIDS, everyone quotes the figures – 34 million people have the virus, 2.5 million new cases every year. But reading those articles, those are just statistics. The harsh reality doesn’t really hit you unless you realise that 34 million people means 34 million mothers, fathers, daughters. People – real people; not just numbers.
And having those numbers thrown at, doesn’t make you sympathetic towards AIDS victims. It just makes you tired of hearing really big numbers, which probably, pretty much defeats the purpose of these AIDS awareness campaigns.
Society needs to be reminded that these are PEOPLE who are suffering from this terrible, terrible disease. And empathise.
Not everyone who has the disease got the disease from poor life choices. And even those that do, isn’t life all about choices? Who amongst us haven’t made poor choices of one sort or another, cast the first stone.
Some people get it from contaminated blood transfusions, pregnant mothers pass the virus down to their children and rapists pass the virus to their victims.
That guy in the hospital, he didn’t do anything to get AIDS, he just needed some blood to survive another day to take care of his family. The woman who got raped was just living her life and now suddenly, she has to deal with the trauma of the attack, a life-threatening disease and the social stigma that goes along with that disease.
And that baby, growing inside her mother’s womb? That baby hasn’t even spoken her first word yet, she hasn’t even entered the world or opened her eyes yet, but she already is HIV infected.
HIV/AIDS is a serious disease. There’s no cure for it once you have it, but what you can do, is to do your very best to prevent yourself from getting the disease in the first place.
There’s a lot of social stigma associated with HIV/AIDS and that’s because some of the people suffering from the disease made the choice to ‘live it up’ and ignore caution. But if you discriminate against all AIDS victims, you’re discriminating against the innocents as well.
HIV/AIDS attacks the body’s immune system, making AIDS victims more susceptible to all of the bacteria and other viruses out there. It can’t be an easy disease to live with, and the victims need a support system to get through every day.
The worst feeling in the world is to feel all alone with no one there for you. If you can feel lonely even with your family and friends all around you, just imagine how it would feel if everyone you knew shut you out because of a disease.
If you turn your backs on AIDS victims, they won’t have any motivation to keep taking their medication, to keep visiting their doctors. They don’t refer to human beings as social beings for nothing. Everybody needs somebody. And AIDS victims probably need that more than most people because they’re probably scared, confused, or depressed.
So let’s have some empathy for HIV/AIDS victims!