Starting December 1st, we will be celebrating World HIV Awareness Week. We hope it will be a time for reflection, and more. May this occasion also serve as a reminder of the lurking presence of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), ready to strike anyone who carelessly lets themselves be swept away by passion alone, failing to use their brains to reflect on the need for healthy and effective prevention. Beyond any possible cure, we must remember that our own best doctors are "OURSELVES.".
For this reason, Makwan Arcigay (who has a disinterested sensitivity to these issues) has been running a prevention campaign against HIV and STDs for several years, distributing not only condoms but also informational materials. For HIV and STDs Week 2011, following the success achieved in 2010 with communications in the province's pharmacies, we will repeat this initiative and expand it to the medical laboratories with which we have reached an agreement.
Furthermore, thanks to a dear friend, we will be showing films about HIV. Another initiative will be to post a series of informational posters in ten municipalities in the hinterland that have offered to help us raise public awareness (and to make it clear that this is not a disease of migrants or gays, but rather that anyone can be infected in any sexual context). In Messina, we will also be distributing informational postcards throughout the city, as we did in 2010. Other evening events beyond the film screening are in the works, but we will keep you informed as soon as possible.
Arcigay Makwan Messina
The President
Rosario Duca
