Xtending Hope asks, do you know your status?
March 11, 2010 9:00 AM
On Thursday, March 11, between 5 and 6 p.m., the Xtending Hope Society will host an information session in Council Chambers about the transmission of HIV/AIDS open to students and the Antigonish community.
The information session is a prelude to an anonymous HIV/AIDS testing service that will be offered the following week as part of the society’s Know Your Status campaign.
Testing will be offered on March 16 at the health centre located in Bloomfield Building. This is the first time that HIV/AIDS testing has ever been offered on campus.
Guest speakers at the information session include Rose Cormier, a Registered Nurse at the StFX health centre; Jo-Anne Rolls, a program coordinator of People Living with HIV/AIDS; and Joanne Dunford, a Registered Nurse with the Victoria Order of Nurses who performs anonymous HIV/AIDS testing.
The student society is affiliated with the Xtending Hope Partnership, a StFX initiative aimed at mobilizing the university community to support work in Rwanda and Botswana that addresses the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The partnership includes students, faculty members, and members of the Coady International Institute.
It was initially created in response to a call for help made by Stephen Lewis, a former United Nations Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa and currently a professor at McMaster University. He asked for Canadian educational institutions to help African countries address the pandemic.
The student society associated with the Xtending Hope Partnership is devoted to raising awareness about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa by hosting events such as the current campaign.
Previous events include the Band Together campaign, the Hope Out Loud concert, and the Faces of Hope dramatic production. They have also given out free condoms to promote safe sex practices.
The society often holds fundraisers as well, including bake sales and coat checks. Any money that the society raises goes back to the Xtending Hope Partnership to fund internships and different projects related to the African pandemic.
Organizers explain that those interested in getting anonymous HIV/AIDS testing do not have to go to the information session. They can call into the health centre to book an appointment, or arrive on the testing day.
“We’re inviting anyone sexually active or non-sexually active to come to the information session who wants to learn about the actual testing or the transmission of the disease,” elaborates Lauren Galbraith, co-president of the Xtending Hope student society.
“For this day in particular, we are looking to bring information about the problem back home [to Canada].”
They recently decided to shift their attention from raising awareness about HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa in favor of bringing the issue closer to home.
“Basically it is a day that we want to raise awareness that HIV/AIDS is prevalent in Canada,” comments Amy Fowler, co-president of the Xtending Hope student society.
“A lot of people think that it’s just in Africa and that it doesn’t affect us over here, [because] Antigonish is small and [they assume] no one’s at risk. But that’s just not true. We want to take a day and just have people reflect on what their status might be.”
“There’s been a need for [HIV/AIDS testing here] probably for years and years. People call into the health centre wondering when they can get this done and then they have to travel to Sydney or Cape Breton,” adds Galbraith.
HIV/AIDS rates in Canada continues to rise, with an estimated 57,000 cases in 2005 to 65,000 cases in 2008, reports the Public Health Agency of Canada.
“Because the focus has been on Sub-Saharan Africa for the past five or six years, that [makes people think] that it is only a problem over there and that they don’t have to worry about it. But it is a problem here in Canada,” reminds Galbraith.
