Exhibit Spotlights Women and HIV/AIDS

—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" Nov. 13-16 in the library lobby.

The opening reception for the event, to be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 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."

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