One Day For AIDS

December 1 is World AIDS Day, and once again my friend John Andru is working tirelessly to raise awareness and financial support to go towards AIDS relief. This is a guy with a passion for raising awareness about this awful, awful disease. Not one to sit around and say, "Wow, isn't it terrible that all these people are dying," he is giving up hour and hours of his own time running the third annual One Day For AIDS campaign. His goal, from the website, is to have 365 people donate $30 towards AIDS relief, with proceeds going to your choice of recipient organizations: The Mennonite Central Committee, The Canadian Red Cross, or the Dr Peter AIDS Foundation.

Would you consider going to the website and donating? Or if you can't give, at least go to the website and read up a little? Raise awareness by maybe taking in an AIDS-related movie over the weekend, reading up about AIDS in books like Stephanie Nolen's 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa, or even by purchasing a red AIDS ribbon to remind yourself and others of the gravity of this disease.

John is organizing a number of different events around Vancouver this weekend if you'd like to come out. One of them is a showing of My brother...Nikhil (scroll down when you click the link) at the Pacific Cinémathèque (1131 Howe St @ Helmcken St) at 2pm. Alternatively, if you're not in the Vancouver area, why not rent a film like Dear Francis, an excellent documentary about college students who go to Africa to educate students about AIDS and end up learning far more than they bargained for. I saw it last year, and it was phenomenal. The trailer is below.

As John says in his November ODFA newsletter, "There are lots of things that you can do. But above all - please don't do nothing. Please don't tune out, or become apathetic or indifferent. My question and challenge to you for World AIDS Day 2007 is: Do you care?"


Dear Francis


One Day For AIDS 2005 * One Day For AIDS 2006