I know everyone this week is talking about HIV and the AIDS Epidemic

But just because everyone is talking about it doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk about it here, either. An AIDS Awareness day is all well and good, but AIDS isn 't just one day a year. It's a part of humanity now, in a way that few things in our history ever have been.

Are you saying, "I don't have HIV, so it's not my problem?" or are you saying, "I've lost too many friends to this horror already, I can't bear anymore."? Or are you somewhere in the middle, looking at the "RED" campaign and thinking, are they really expecting me to pay so much knowing only a fraction of what I'm spending on their I-Pods, cel-phones and t-shirts is going to a cause that I should really be writing a check directly to the AIDS foundation for?
I don't think it matters where in the spectrum you are. This epidemic is bigger than all of us, and millions of people are suffering from it.
The facts are everywhere. I've linked below to some of them, so I won't enumerate them here. But with the facts so readily available, why are so many people still ignorant about HIV, what causes it, why it spreads, and the impacts, cultural, spiritual, physical and economical, that it has on our world? The social stigma surrounding HIV continues to persist, in spite of the numbers that say that this is not a 'gay' disease, or a 'prostitute' disease, or an 'addicts' disease. The word humanitarian has it's roots in the word human. We like to consider ourselves human, but I have to ask, when we turn a blind eye, an ignorant eye, a prejudiced eye, to such suffering, do we still deserve to call ourselves human?

So, what am I asking?

A mission of education. Do not just educate yourself, but educate others. When someone expresses ignorant views on HIV/AIDS and those who suffer from it, corret them.
It takes courage, certainly, to stand up and tell someone that you believe that they are wrong and then quote the scientific facts of reality. It takes courage to stand up and speak the truth sometimes. But that courage isn't half of what those who are suffering from AIDS/HIV must have to face their illness. With just a fraction of that courage, we CAN make a difference in the wall of ignorance that surrounds HIV.