World AIDS Week observed at PSU

It may be a quiet week at Pittsburg State University as classes begin to wind down for the semester, but the voices of Southeast Kansas HIV and AIDS victims will be heard loud and clear.

Gorillas in Your Midst and Student Prevention and Wellness will sponsor World AIDS Week each day through Friday, Nov. 30, with an AIDS quilt display from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Overman Student Center. The quilt panels, on loan from the Tulsa Area Names Project, are dedicated to the memory of lost loved ones. Information on the quilt, brochures on HIV and AIDS, red ribbons and posters will be distributed.

At 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 28, a ceremony will be held at the center near the quilt display. The event will include monologues gathered from residents in Southeast Kansas who live with HIV and AIDS, as well as poetry, songs, and a candlelight remembrance of those who have died from AIDS and those who continue to live with the disease.

The quilt panels will continue to be on display for the Pittsburg community on World AIDS Day this Saturday, Dec. 1, at the Meadowbrook Mall in Pittsburg.

In accordance with this year’s theme “HIV: Let’s Get Talking,” PSU professors have been asked to include discussions about the disease in their classrooms. Monetary donations for the quilt display will be accepted at the display sites. Donations will be forwarded to Doctors Without Borders, the Nobel Prize-winning medical relief organization, with the stipulation that money be used for AIDS relief in developing countries.

For more information, contact J.T. Knoll at 620-235-4062 or at jknoll@pittstate.edu.

---Pitt State---