Photo Exhibition on HIV/AIDS

November 5, 2007 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Summary: Three Calvin organizations are teaming up to host a walk-through
photo exhibition that spotlights the gender inequity inherent in global HIV/
AIDS.

Full story see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2007-08/womenandaids.htm

Three Calvin organizations are teaming up to host a walk-through photo
exhibition that spotlights the gender inequity inherent in global HIV/AIDS.

The student-run International Health and Development (IHD) organization, the
Sexuality Series from Student Life and the Gender Studies minor are
co-sponsoring "Giving Women Power Over AIDS" from Tuesday through Friday,
November 13–16 in the library lobby.

The opening reception for the event, to be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, November
13 in the Meeter Center lecture hall, will feature a talk by Calvin political
science professor Simona Goi.

"Giving Women Power Over AIDS" is a series of 10 two-sided panels, each
measuring six feet high by three feet wide. Visitors view first one side of the
exhibition, which tells the story of one woman's battle with HIV/AIDS, then the
other, which focuses on prevention of the disease.

The exhibition, combining artistry with advocacy, shows that a
disproportionate share of the HIV/AIDS epidemic falls upon women—and women
who are powerless to protect themselves.

"Sixty percent of HIV/ AIDS infections are now women," said sophomore Michelle
Fraser, an IHD co-chair and one of the event organizers. "In fact, one of the
big risk factors for contracting HIV is to be a monogamous, married woman in
sub-Saharan Africa."

Fraser, who learned of the gender issues surrounding AIDS when she traveled
throughout east Africa between high school and college, hopes to draw good
attendance to "Giving Women Power Over AIDS."

"Even in the states, you see, when families are ill, it's often the mother
figure who cares for them," she said. "This is true in those cultures as well
with the added strain that it's often the women and mothers that are getting
ill themselves. So, the burden of caring for a family that is impoverished and
sick in more ways than HIV—that burden is falling on the woman, who is
herself ill in many cases."

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Received on Mon Nov 5 13:16:33 2007