A sea of red balloons, tents and banners flooded Hayden Lawn Friday in an attempt to promote awareness for a disease that claimed more than 2.6 million lives globally in 2006 alone.
Hundreds of ASU students came out for the World AIDS Day rally hosted by the national organization FACE AIDS at ASU and other clubs on campus. The rally was held in order to raise money and awareness for the HIV/AIDS epidemic in countries worldwide.
Members of FACE AIDS campaigned throughout the weekend and raised more than $1,000 from students. These donations will go toward medical treatment in Africa, said anthropology senior and the club's president Chelsea Thomsen.
"We really try to show students that the HIV/AIDS epidemic affects people worldwide," Thomsen said. "And just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's something you can't change. If we come together and work in unison as a student movement, we can create a lot of change."
This is the second year that FACE AIDS has campaigned during World AIDS day on more than 200 campuses nationwide, Thomsen said. This year the organization raised about $850,000 and members hope to reach one million by the end of the campaigns, she said.
FACE AIDS is student founded and run organization that has joined with Partners in Health, a health care provider with clinics all over the world, to donate money toward funding medical attention for developing countries.
The organization also focuses on putting a face on the epidemic by providing biographies from those suffering or affected by the epidemic, according to its Web site.
The money raised by FACE AIDS at ASU will go directly toward funding a new clinic in Rwanda, a country in east-central Africa, Thomsen said.
"Students should be aware that it doesn't cost a lot of money to fight this epidemic," she said. "To provide treatment in Africa it is as little as 50 cents a day."
Other clubs on campus joined FACE AIDS at ASU by setting up informational tables to represent other countries around the world affected by the AIDS epidemic. Mexico, the U.K., Brazil and India were among the countries represented.
"I knew that Africa and most countries were affected by AIDS but just on different levels," said marketing sophomore Jesse Mayfield. "The table representing the U.K. was surprising though. I wouldn't typically think a medically advanced country like that to be as affected as they are."
But for students like kinesiology senior Danielle Levy, getting involved with the World AIDS Day rally and FACE AIDS at ASU has been because of a more personal connection.
Levy said she first became involved as a way to remember her uncle who died of AIDS when she was very young. Since then, the two months she spent in Tanzania, a country in east Africa, teaching AIDS/HIV awareness last summer has inspired her to pursue medical school, she said.
"This is such a preventable disease, and something can always be done," Levy said. "This organization has given me the motivation to realize that even though we are small, we have the power to make a lot of change."
Reach the reporter at: kendall.wright@asu.edu.
