AIDS panel aims to educate
By Lauren Busto
Education is key in the fight against AIDS, panelists said at a discussion last week designed to educate students about the continuing worldwide AIDS crisis.
The panel was part of events for "FACE AIDS" week on campus and included environmental studies professor Leslie Gray, Stanford University professor David Katzenstein and a Zimbabwean student attending college in the United States.
Rutendo Kashambwa moved from Zimbabwe to attend University of California at Berkeley. Having firsthand experience with the reality of an HIV-positive world, Kashambwa discussed the plight of young African women trapped in a cycle of poverty and disease.
According to Kashambwa, the extreme poverty of African families makes providing an education or food impossible. As such, the young women often fall victim to older men called "big dharas," who offer to support the women and their families in exchange for sex.
Zimbabwean women "have a very hard time asserting themselves in relationships," Kashambwa said. The women are pressured both by the men and by their families, making the situation impossible to escape.
Although the men are often infected with HIV and pass the disease to their partners, families often encourage the exchange because it will provide for food and other necessary expenses.
Women constitute 58 percent of the HIV-positive population worldwide.
Marisa Ornelas, a student that attended the panel, was inspired by Kashambwa.
"She gave hope to the cause that sometimes seems so hopeless," Ornelas said.
Gray discussed the AIDS situation in sub-Saharan Africa, an area of the world that has been hit hardest by the disease.
Gray spoke about the importance of education for prevention, especially within African cultures that consider sex a taboo subject.
"I found that the most interesting reason she recognized for the spread of AIDS is the lack of conversation about sex," student Jenny Gore said.
According to Gray, because discussion of sex is not condoned, many people grow up not knowing what AIDS is, how it's transmitted and it how it can be prevented.
"It seems crazy that a small, ten-minute conversation about sex could save a life, yet it is so difficult to do," Gore said.
Katzenstien, the third panelist, had worked personally with victims of HIV and AIDS in Africa.
"For one," he said, "there is a disconnect between the greater problem of AIDS and people's conceptions of their own personal risk."
Katzenstein presented graphs of the rates of infection in different areas to give the audience a general idea of how the disease has progressed in the world.
He also discussed the difficulties of getting AIDS patients needed medications. According to Katzenstein, the cost of medications marketed in the Third World by pharmaceutical companies are so high that ordinary, affected families do not have access.
The presenters ended the evening on a more hopeful note, showing the places where the spread of disease has actually declined.
However, according Liz Engellenner, a student at the panel, the whole occasion begged the question, "What does this mean in the context of our everyday lives?"
"How do we live our privileged lives knowing that over 42 million people are currently HIV-positive?" she asked.
FACE AIDS week was the launch of the FACE AIDS organization's campaign at Santa Clara. The organization's goal is to raise $1 million for the fight against AIDS in Africa.
The group was founded by three Stanford students, in memory of an African woman who died of AIDS while the students were working with her in a refugee camp in Zambia during the summer of 2005.
The group is active on college campuses across the nation, and to date has raised close to $50,000. They hope to raise the full $1 million by the end of 2006, with the money going to fund African community organizations.