Nat'l AIDS conference has Philadelphia roots

Just over two weeks ago, more than 60 high school, college and medical students, along with several experienced AIDS activists, spent President's Day weekend at the Student Global AIDS Campaign Philadelphia Regional Conference.

And it all started with one Philadelphia high school student.

The conference was held as part of the Student Global AIDS Campaign, a national movement that was founded at Harvard University about a year ago. The campaign lobbies the federal government for $2.5 billion in emergency appropriations to the United Nations Global AIDS and Health Fund every year.

The campaign is also working toward complete debt cancellation for heavily indebted countries and those impacted by HIV/AIDS, as well as guaranteed access to reasonably-priced treatment and care for the developing world.

"The Bush administration has failed to adequately support the fight against AIDS," said Elizabeth Landau, a senior at Shipley High School and chief organizer of the conference.

The SGAC had some help in organizing the citywide conference, and members of the Penn World AIDS Foundation also attended and helped run the weekend-long event.

According to Foundation Co-Chairman Owusu Akoto, the conference brought together AIDS activists from several different groups in the Philadelphia community and allowed them to share their goals and ideas.

"From the SGAC perspective, [the conference served] to consolidate the links between like-minded organizations in the region," the College sophomore said.

Since its inception in February 2001, the campaign has held regional conferences across the country to raise awareness and educate students and other members of the various communities.

"From this national campaign we decided that we were going to have regional conferences to attract more attention in specific regions," Landau said.

Landau took up the campaign's cause while studying at Harvard last summer. Upon returning to Philadelphia, she decided to take action on her own.

The Philadelphia conference began Saturday, Feb. 16 in Meyerson Hall with discussions and advocacy workshops. The workshops served to train participants to convince legislators to support the global fund.

Landau said she hopes participants in the conference will bring their knowledge back to their respective communities in order to spread the movement even further.

"The main thing is that people who came to the conference can take the issues that they learned about back to their high schools and colleges," she said. "We really want more people to join the fight. We want to expand to even more parts of the country."

The conference continued on Sunday the 17th at 30th Street Station, Houston Hall and the streets of West Philadelphia, where participants helped spread the movement by persuading pedestrians to write letters to their local legislators. Over 70 letters were written -- a big success for the budding campaign.

Using what they learned at the conference, members of the Foundation said they hope to increase their revenue over the next year and to educate as many people as possible about the worldwide epidemic.

"Our main goal is to raise money and raise consciousness about HIV and AIDS in terms of the global dilemma," College sophomore and Foundation co-founder Leila Sadeghi said.

The $5,000 that the Foundation has already raised since its birth in the fall semester came solely from their student discount initiative. In order to raise money for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Foundation members have been selling discount cards to students throughout the school year at $10 apiece. The cards offer discounts at 30 University City stores and restaurants, including Eastern Mountain Sports, La Terrasse and Smokey Joe's.

"Every person who carries the card takes a step forward in the right direction," Sadeghi said.

Future plans for the Foundation include increased sales of the discount card, which will be sold next semester through Penn Student Agencies and a series of benefit concerts.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.