 "Photo: Elizabeth Moskowitz")
Local musicians DJ Hobo D, Sweet Lee Morrow, Freshmillions and Zykos played at Club de Ville Saturday night for a concert to raise more than $1,000 to fight AIDS in Africa.
Face AIDS Austin, the UT chapter of a national AIDS advocacy group, hosted the benefit to cap off a week-long series of events promoting World AIDS Day.
The United Nations estimates that more than 33 million people worldwide are infected with HIV. This year, nearly 3 million have been infected and more than 2 million people have died of AIDS. The sub-Saharan region of Africa is home to 68 percent of those infected.
More than 300 people attended the concert, raising about $1,100 for the night and nearly $2,000 for the entire week, said government and Spanish literature senior Robert Earle, chapter president.
"Five dollars is enough to support a HIV patient, a child, for two months," Earle said. "I believe with that ratio, we raised enough that night to support many children for a year."
The money will be donated to fight AIDS in Africa, said English senior Saman Kamal, the group's spokeswoman.
"HIV and AIDS is a really controllable disease if medicine is accessible and taken correctly," Kamal said. "A lot of people are uneducated, and we're trying to fix that. One $5 donation goes a really long way."
She said the chapter was founded in the fall 2006, but did not become active until last semester.
"We volunteer in our local area and try to educate the campus, motivate students to get involved in fighting the pandemic," Kamal said.
President George W. Bush addressed World AIDS Day in a speech Friday.
"We mourn their lives cut short, their dreams of a future denied," Bush said. "And we ask for God's blessing on the loved ones they have left behind. We also mark this day with hope for the improving prospects of those living with the virus, for the unprecedented number of infections being prevented and for new progress toward eradicating this disease."
Bush called on Congress to reauthorize the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Two UT professors in conjunction with the Student Global AIDS Campaign organized a daylong conference Saturday in the Texas Student Union to discuss HIV/AIDS-related issues, including global awareness, GLBT community concerns, women and HIV and stereotypes about AIDS.
"We decided that the professors that were working on HIV and sexuality activities needed to know each other," said history assistant professor James Wilson. "When we met, we decided we needed to do something on a second step to engage the University community in promoting an awareness. We looked around and found there is not a conference on campus to address this issue and thought we needed to do it."
Attendance was not limited to students and many from the Austin community came to the conference.
"We also wanted to get the community involved," English associate professor Neville Hoad said. "We tried to have on each panel a faculty person, a student organization person and a community activist or community health provider representative."
Hoad said they worked on the event over the course of the semester.
"I think we probably will do it again next year," Hoad said. "I think we might want to do a conference on another AIDS-related issue, or we might want to do a speaker series."
Several students founded the Student Global AIDS Campaign last year after taking Professor Wilson's "History of AIDS in Africa" class.
"It's basically about creating global awareness on campus about HIV/AIDS but also making sure we are local advocates and doing our part here," said social work senior Emily Ybarra, the group's president.
Ybarra said the conference was the group's last event during the semester, but she encouraged other students to get involved with Student Global AIDS Campaign.
"[Students] can become a member of SGAC; they can volunteer at AIDS Services of Austin - they always need help there," she said. "Talk about HIV, ask questions, listen - that helps to disparage all the stigma and shame around HIV."
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