INTERNATIONAL AIDS CANDLELIGHT MEMORIAL TO BE MARKED AROUND THE WORLD
🕯️ On THE 18th OF May, thousands of people will take part in events around the world to support the thirty-first International AIDS Candlelight Memorial. Activities will range from small local vigils to national commemorations as people come together to light candles, march, perform, raise awareness and express solidarity with people living with and affected by HIV. People who have lost their lives to AIDS-related illnesses will also be remembered.
🕯️ The memorial, with the theme of “Let’s keep the light on HIV”, is coordinated by the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+) and is spearheaded by a coalition of more than a thousand community organizations, such as networks of HIV-positive people, women’s and youth groups, businesses, academic institutions, faith-based organizations and the media.
The occasion will be used to further the overarching aims of ensuring that HIV stays firmly on the social and political agenda and that HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services are available to all who need them. The Memorial also provides an opportunity to challenge stigma and encourage activism and community dialogue, while highlighting the need to safeguard the advances that have been made in stemming the epidemic and to make greater progress in the future.
🕯️ The Candlelight Memorial began in 1983 when HIV and how it is transmitted, was still being discovered. Knowing they would die within the year, four young men – Bobbi Campbell, Bobby Reynolds, Dan Turner and Mark Feldman – decided to put a “face on the disease” by coordinating a small vigil behind a banner reading “Fighting For Our Lives".
The four planned a march through the San Francisco gay district Castro to City Hall and created a poster. As others joined in, the Candlelight drew thousands, beginning a movement that would inspire countless other people living with HIV and AIDS in other countries to focus the attention of communities and national leaders on HIV, to foster support, and move people to action.
The Candlelight Memorial was managed by the PLHIV driven organization Mobilization Against AIDS until the Global Health Council began organizing the event in 2000. The Global Health Council organised the 25th Anniversary of the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial in 2008 – commemorating a quarter century of remembrance, community mobilization, and global solidarity.
In 2011 the International Candlelight Memorial has returned to where it started, again hosted and coordinated by people living with HIV, through the Global Network of People living with HIV. In its vision, the Candlelight remains one of the most important civil society-led efforts, both to remember those we have lost, as well as to celebrate the lives of people living with HIV.
Since 1984 the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial is hold on the third Sunday in May. In some countries, the exact date varies.
The four planned a march through the San Francisco gay district Castro to City Hall and created a poster. As others joined in, the Candlelight drew thousands, beginning a movement that would inspire countless other people living with HIV and AIDS in other countries to focus the attention of communities and national leaders on HIV, to foster support, and move people to action.
The Candlelight Memorial was managed by the PLHIV driven organization Mobilization Against AIDS until the Global Health Council began organizing the event in 2000. The Global Health Council organised the 25th Anniversary of the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial in 2008 – commemorating a quarter century of remembrance, community mobilization, and global solidarity.
In 2011 the International Candlelight Memorial has returned to where it started, again hosted and coordinated by people living with HIV, through the Global Network of People living with HIV. In its vision, the Candlelight remains one of the most important civil society-led efforts, both to remember those we have lost, as well as to celebrate the lives of people living with HIV.
Since 1984 the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial is hold on the third Sunday in May. In some countries, the exact date varies.
QUOTES
"WE HAVE SEEN EXTRAORDINARY ADVANCES IN HOW HIV IS RECOGNIZED AND TREATED. THIS CHANGE HAS ONLY BEEN ABLE TO COME ABOUT THROUGH THE INCREDIBLE ACTIVISM LEAD BY THE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV. THE CANDLELIGHT MEMORIAL IS ABOUT RECOGNIZING PEOPLE WHO HAVE CAMPAIGNED FOR THE RIGHTS OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV, AS WELL AS REMEMBERING THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN ALONG THE WAY."
{ over and out } Egypt A. Assanti { aka } Big Sister Southern Heat - "Baroness"
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