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WEEK of December 11, 2006
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Upper School Recognizes World AIDS Day

The Upper School’s Peace and Social Action Committee (PASAC) and Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) collaborated on a thought-provoking and emotionally powerful presentation for World AIDS Day on December 1.

Students and teachers began the day by covering the student art work in the halls at 55 Willoughby Street with black paper. This symbolic gesture—a world without art—represented the history of HIV/AIDS and its impact on the gay community since the inception of the disease.

Afterwards, the entire Upper School gathered in the Meeting House for a collection that extended its focus well beyond the gay community, as the epidemic has become world-wide in scope. The presentation began with the screening of an independent documentary about the impact of AIDS/HIV on orphans in Kenya. It was a powerful film; the upper school students focused immediately on seriousness and impact of this on-going epidemic. This was followed by a power-point presentation, put together by junior Nick Goode, based on research undertaken by students in GSA and PASAC. The presentation also included the definitions of HIV and AIDS, means of transmission, and some of the common misconceptions about the disease. GSA and PASAC members had researched the impact of AIDS on countries around the world, including Canada, Mexico, Zimbabwe, South Africa, India, Thailand, and numerous other countries; each member read one or more of the facts to the community. One of the slides that was particularly moving was a picture of the globe with the number of people living with HIV and AIDS from each continent.

To conclude the collection, the student groups asked community members to tie a red ribbon on a line that was strung across the stage, to represent someone they knew who was living with or had died of HIV/AIDS, or simply to acknowledge the impact that the disease was having on the world community. Almost every person in the Meeting House came to the stage to fasten a ribbon onto the line. The students later moved the line from Pearl Street to Willoughby Street and put the line of ribbons up over the covered art (photo, above).

Raising awareness of AIDS will be more than a one-time event at Brooklyn Friends. The GSA and PASAC members plan to create and sell personal red AIDS ribbons from the ribbons they collected on World AIDS Day.

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