Saturday, January 27, 2007

Chikumbuso day

Dodd stadium is holding a chikumbuso day where $4's of the $8 ticket will go to Chikumbuso. But it is only the tickets that are previously sold. Both the high school and elementary schools are selling tickets, you if you are interested you can either contact the elementary school or me. it should be a fun day, Pawcatuck schools, and Voluntown school are both going so we should have a lot of representation for Chikumbuso.

The Age of AIDS

i just watched this documentary called The Age of AIDS. it starts off telling you how AIDS started, which they think is from monkeys, to today's image of AIDS. it talks about the different stigmas of AIDS, what it is like in different countries, and how they each delt with it. it is very interesting, and informational. it is made by PBS so you should check it out, you will learn a lot

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

My Research

Today i started to really research AIDS. i know that i want to focus on the stigma that is associated with AIDS, but a lot of the research just focused here in America. It talked about how many people think that AIDS is the "gay mans" disease. But what i really want to focus on is whey people don't get tested for AIDS, what is it that makes them think they cant get it. Is it just the lack of knowledge, or is it shameful in their community. What beliefs do they have towards AIDS, and why do they feel this way. Most of these beliefs occur in different countries, especially poor countries.
I was surprised to read that South Africa's leader did not believe that HIV caused AIDS. So the government there didn't support AIDS research. It was only "In August 2003, the South African government gave in to public pressure and made plans for the widespread use of anti-HIV medicines to treat people who test positive for HIV/AIDS." (pg 23, 21st Century Issues, AIDS) This surprised me because i know that AIDS is a huge problem in Africa, and it kills over 8,000 people a day throughout the world. A problem like that happening to the African community should have been recognized earlier. If that had happened maybe there would not be so many orphans and widows, and maybe Africa would not be such a poor country.