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Courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archive
"Philadelphia" is among the films and TV shows
that you can view 10a.m.-noon at Powell Library, Room 270. |
do you want to know?
Events to rally the campus around stopping AIDS
by Cynthia Lee
ucla today staff
What Lance Armstrong did for the yellow wristband, worn as a symbol
of the fight against cancer, Edwin Bayrd, executive director of
the UCLA AIDS Institute, wants to do for a red wristband that carries
the message, “I know.”
On Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, each person who climbs aboard two mobile
AIDS testing vans, to be parked in Bruin Plaza from 10 a.m. to 3
p.m., will indeed know his or her HIV status 20 minutes after taking
a simple, highly reliable blood test. And each person who is tested
will be given the red wristband to wear, Bayrd said.
“We want this to become a visual symbol that says, ‘I
got tested for HIV. I have made the decision that I want to know.’
” Good or bad, the result will save lives, he said.
Among the many programs and events planned for Dec. 1 by the institute
and the Department of World Arts and Cultures, in partnership with
half a dozen campus units, the free, anonymous HIV testing that
is being taken out of clinics and labs and put right at the hub
of student activities is central to the “I Know — And
Knowledge is Power” campaign, a yearlong effort that the institute
hopes will be replicated by other campuses nationwide. The institute
is working with two AIDS awareness groups, the Minority AIDS Program
and Prevention on Wheels, to bring the testing vans back to campus
every three or four months as a way of de-stigmatizing HIV testing.
That’s only one of the ways event organizers hope to motivate
the campus to stop the spread of AIDS. Beginning at 10:45 a.m.,
three student-led processions will converge on Bruin Plaza from
different parts of the campus to hear speakers and a rock band.
From 10 a.m. to noon, the Instructional Media Lab in Powell Library
will make available at viewing stations a number of AIDS-related
videos and films that anyone can watch. At 1 p.m. at the Freud Playhouse,
five international artists will demonstrate how art in different
forms can shape a new approach to public health in MAKE ART/STOP
AIDS. This program will continue Dec. 3 with a day of discourse
involving artists, scholars and activists.
To find out more about all the World AIDS Day events at UCLA,
go to www.wac.ucla.edu.
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