A woman adjusts a red ribbon, symbol of the fight against AIDS during a demonstration on World Aids Day, in Pamplona northern Spain, Monday, Dec. 1, 2014. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)
Many organizations across campus partnered to raise awareness about HIV in Mississippi and the South through various activities for World AIDS Day Monday.
The involved organizations include the Sarah Isom Center, along with the Center for Inclusion and Cross Cultural Engagement, Student Housing, the Office of Health Promotions, the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, the Meek School of Journalism and New Media, the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation and PrideNetwork.
The activities included a screening of the documentary “deepsouth” at noon in the Overby Auditorium and a social media campaign that allowed students to actively participate by posting pictures on various social media websites.
The institutions participating in this event are Duke University, Vanderbilt and Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia.
“We are showing ‘deepsouth’ here because Mississippi is impacted by this disease,” said Theresa Starkey, assistant director of the Isom Center and instructor of gender studies. “The screening is one of several that will be streamed live today across the country.”
The documentary, produced by Lisa Biagiotti, is an exploratory, intimate work about HIV’s impact in places such as Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. The film follows the lives of HIV activists in rural Southern areas.
“(Biagiotti’s) subjects are everyday people who are working to build a community of support for those with HIV,” Starkey said. “They are individuals interested in creating structural change for communities with limited resources. Biagiotti’s work shows how individuals can create community for others when family support is absent, and resources are scarce.”
Starkey said the documentary encourages audience members to consider what community means and to think about the ways one person can make a difference and to imagine what positive change can happen when we people work together to help others.
“HIV is a health issue for the state of Mississippi, for example, the Delta and Jackson area and the larger South,” Starkey said. “Acknowledging World AIDS Day is a way for the Ole Miss student body to contemplate their region and how HIV is impacting men and women in our state and in a lager national and international context.”
Tables were also set up around campus containing red ribbons for students to wear, information on testing and HIV and signs that students could take selfies that had the message, “This World AIDS Day I’m #FinsUpAgainstAIDS.”
The hashtag was created by Alysia Steele’s design students in the school of journalism as a way to get students in the classroom involved in the project in a creative way.
“Our vision was to create a social media campaign that our larger Ole Miss student body could actively participate in as a way to raise awareness about HIV in the South and about World AIDS Day,” Starkey said. “Our students are technologically savvy. This format allows them to be active voices in a larger public forum.”
If students are interested in information about HIV testing and other services, Starkey recommends they contact T. Davis in the Office of Health Promotions.
“Her department is instrumental when it come to providing students access to important information about HIV,” Starkey said.
