At 5 p.m. every Friday evening, a time when most Jumbos' thoughts are on friends, parties and relaxation, seven students are hard at work in the Zamparelli room of the Campus Center.
They constitute the Tufts chapter of Face AIDS, a national group whose goal is to raise awareness about AIDS as a global problem, with a regional focus on Africa. As the latest addition of Tufts' HIV/AIDS Collaborative - an on-campus organization devoted to highlighting and supporting the fight against AIDS - they are working to help combat the deadly disease.
"Face AIDS seeks to show students that they as undergraduates can help an African adult or child infected with this disease," senior Apurvi Mehta, the coordinator of Face AIDS at Tufts, said. "Students will be empowered to do this through awareness, funding campaigns, and the Face AIDS mission."
According to the Face AIDS Web site, 40.3 million people worldwide are currently living with HIV, and 3.1 million people worldwide died of AIDS in 2005. Of those who died, more than half a million were children under 15. Overall, sub-Saharan Africa accounts for more than 60 percent of all people currently living with HIV.
To help combat this problem, the national Face AIDS organization is currently working with Partners In Health, a global health organization founded by Dr. Paul Farmer. The groups' objectives include raising $1 million to build a Partners In Health AIDS clinic in Rwanda and to provide income for 65 AIDS patients throughout the continent so that they can afford anti-retroviral treatment.
Face AIDS chapters contribute to these efforts by selling beaded versions of the AIDS ribbon pin, which the patients make themselves in order to earn money for their treatment.
Mehta first became involved with Face AIDS in November of 2006, when the Tufts Pre-Med Society forwarded her an e-mail from national campaign director Elizabeth Kersten, inviting Tufts students to begin their own chapter.
After reading the e-mail, Mehta contacted Kersten directly, volunteering to be the coordinator for Face AIDS at Tufts. The group had its first meeting in December, and joined the HIV/AIDS Collaborative this semester.
In January 2008, during winter recess, Tufts Face AIDS will sponsor a service trip to either Ghana or South Africa to educate people there about how to avoid spreading or contracting HIV and AIDS.
In addition, the Tufts chapter of Face AIDS is interested in raising awareness of the presence of HIV/AIDS within our own national borders: According to Avert, a national AIDS awareness charity, around 1 million people in the United States are currently living with HIV.
"Face AIDS' main focus is on AIDS in Africa, but is also secondarily interested in AIDS in the local area," Mehta said.
As a result, Face AIDS shares a common purpose with the Tufts HIV/AIDS Collaborative, which began in 2005 as a group of people primarily interested in the latest developments in AIDS research.
"The Collaborative started as a smaller group of people who would have dinner and talk to researchers of the disease," said senior Dora Levinson, who co-chairs the HIV/AIDS Collaborative with sophomore Morissa Sobelson.
According to Levinson, the HIV/AIDS Collaborative expanded the scope of its mission last semester due to waning interest in AIDS outreach in the Leonard Carmichael Society.
As a result, the HIV/AIDS Collaborative has taken on a variety of AIDS-related projects, such as volunteering at shelters that serve meals to local AIDS patients, participating in campus events such as the Sex Fair and the Timmy Foundation's Global Health Week, and promoting HIV testing in the Tufts community with the TCU Senate.
Last year on World AIDS day, the Collaborative sponsored a well-attended AIDS conference at Tufts. In the summer of 2006, a delegation of Collaborative members attended the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada.
In addition to the organization's initiatives, the Collaborative supports ideas and programs led by other members within the Tufts community.
"We have a 10-person executive board to give everything a structure," Sobelson said. "But at the same time we give members a lot of freedom to do what they want with their ideas."
According to Sobelson, the HIV/AIDS Collaborative has high hopes for its new partnership with Face AIDS.
"The two organizations are more similar than different," Sobelson said. "Although Face AIDS is primarily about AIDS in Africa, we still have a shared purpose in raising awareness about AIDS throughout the world."
According to Mehta, Face AIDS members are currently planning several local awareness and fundraising events for the month of April. These include a basketball tournament to help raise money for the national organization's $1 million goal, a film screening about AIDS in Africa, and a panel of speakers comprised of local HIV/AIDS researchers and activists. The panel will include an AIDS or HIV-positive individual who will speak about living with the virus or disease.
The group is also planning to conduct a Choice Interactive Game modeled off the popular "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, which allows Tufts students to put themselves in the positions of people who have or are at risk of contracting HIV in the United States and in Africa.
Mehta said he foresees a great future between Face AIDS and the HIV/AIDS Collaborative.
"I knew that the partnership between HIV/AIDS Collaborative and Face AIDS at Tufts would be beneficial to both groups," she said. "The HIV/AIDS Collaborative has given ample support to the Face AIDS cause, and both groups are excited to see where our collaboration takes us in future years at Tufts."
