Students Jumping at Fundraising Opportunity

‘Get mad about HIV/Aids’ is the motto of the first UK-wide NUS Student Charity Day on 3 May. The NUS wants to make the day a huge success to benefit its chosen charity ActionAid and its work with people living with HIV and Aids in Africa.
 Students nationwide are already coming up with fantastic fundraising ideas and it’s not tea mornings and jumble sales. Extreme sports are more the order of the day, with some events involving unaccompanied leaps from tall structures. If you have always secretly thought that bungee jumping is for wimps, SCAD-diving does it without ropes!
 
Anything goes, as long as it raises awareness about the devastating HIV/Aids epidemic in Africa. Young people with the same aspirations and ambitions as UK students are being deprived of the opportunity for even a primary education – something we all take for granted.
 
The statistics are mind-boggling. In the whole of Western Europe last year there were 6,800 Aids-related deaths. In Africa nearly the same number died every day, that’s the equivalent of the entire student body of the average university or college dying every couple of days. According to Nelson Mandela, “Aids in Africa is claiming more lives that the sum total of all wars, famines, floods and diseases”.
 
ActionAid told me about the Gatsi family from Zimbabwe where 12-year-old Joshua is having to look after his brothers and sisters since their parents died. Joshua’s story is heartrending but unfortunately all too common.
 
“Sometimes we do not go to school because other children will be teasing us since our uniforms are usually dirty and sometimes we are just too hungry to do school work,” said Joshua. “If we can, we go and work in people’s homes in exchange for food and clothes.”
 
It is not just parents who are infected. Young people, particularly young women, are also at risk. About one in three of those currently living with HIV/Aids are aged between 15 and 24. In that age group, 60 per cent of new infections occur in women under 20.
 
Discrimination, and a lack of education and power result in unnecessary infection and death – yet the situation can be turned around. In Uganda, there has been a 10 per cent drop in infection rates. Strong leadership at all levels coupled with the political will to take action has helped turn Uganda’s epidemic around. But to scale up the response throughout Africa requires both money and commitment. And that’s where we can all make a difference.
 
The statistics about HIV/AIDS in Africa are unacceptable. So Get Mad about them – MAD enough to change them. . Raise awareness and have fun in the run up to 3 May. NUS and ActionAid hope that events on the day will reflect the ability of students to capture the public imagination. To find out more about the weird, wild or wonderful events taking place, contact your local union representative, or log on to www.actionzone.cc or www.nusonline.co.uk. And that doesn’t necessarily have to involve death leaps!