Out of sight, out of mind is how America once treated people living with HIV/AIDS. Today, Georgia State is one of many college campuses where organizations are raising awareness and funds for communities affected by the epidemic.
On Sun., Oct. 21, AID Atlanta will put on the annual AIDS Walk and 5K Run at Piedmont Park. The Office of Civic Engagement, Softer Touch and the Eta Mu chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority each have teams that will participate in the event.
Eboni Wyatt, student assistant with the Office of Civic Engagement, said she always tries to make sure the office has a team to include students who want to volunteer.
“I’m really passionate about HIV and AIDS,” said Wyatt, a senior Sociology major. “Just spreading awareness and being an advocate on that end. I’ve kind of just taken [the event] on as my little baby. [The Office of Civic Engagement is] not just focused on homelessness…on environmental issues… or poverty. We’re trying to encompass as many social issues as possible. Especially those big ones that affect Atlanta like HIV and AIDS.”
AID Atlanta is the largest HIV/AIDS service organization in the Southeast. At last year’s AIDS Walk, the organization raised more than $1 million to benefit people living with HIV/AIDS. It helped prevent new HIV infections with more than 85,000 education program participants in Atlanta, according to aidswalkatlanta.com.
“It was amazing,” Wyatt said about last year’s 5K. “It was really cool because that was my first year doing it. Just being around a lot of people that are there for a cause and just passionate about it-which is really empowering.”
Though World AIDS Day is Dec. 1, the AIDS Walk takes place during LGBTQ History month, possibly because it is a community that is largely affected by the disease, Wyatt said. However, students strive to spread the knowlege to others that this community is not the only one affected.
“The biggest thing is diversity,” Wyatt said. “You don’t want people to think that this is just an LGBTQ issue or this is just a black issue. It really affects everyone.”
Tadzy Hall, Parliamentarian of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc, said because the disease is affecting the current college age generation more than it affected their parents or grandparents, it is very important for students to be proactive in trying to prevent AIDS from taking over the community.
“It used to be seen as a gay man’s disease… that was shunned and looked down upon,” Hall said. “But now, when your daughter has it and your brother has it and they’re not gay—they’re not out of the norm to your standards— you’re more concerned and… you want to help them find a cure for this.”
The Eta Mu Chapter currently has 62 people signed up to participate in the AIDS Walk—a team accumulated after only three weeks of promoting.
“I’m very proud of our chapter because we’re about to reach our goal of $3,000,” Hall said. “We started out at an initial goal of $750 and within the first week we hit $1,000. So we kept increasing the goal.”
Hall said Eta Mu’s mission is to raise money to find a cure and to help 
people living with AIDS. According to Hall, since Eta Mu is a black sorority, being an advocate for AIDS awareness is crucial because the disease is so prevalent in the black community, especially with black women.
Ajahn Richard, Membership Director of Softer Touch, said college students do care about volunteering for this cause.
“Before the promotion [of the AIDS Walk] I didn’t think [college students cared]. After seeing some of the organizations that are participating in the walk [raise] awareness, I was like ‘Oh, people really do want to get invloved and are interested in it,’” Richard said. “Because we live in Atlanta, and the statistics are so high… it just makes people aware, and in college everyone wants to be aware.”
The AIDS Walk/Run has been a tradition of Softer Touch for a couple of years, Richard said. Their goal is to promote awareness because AIDS is the number one killer of African American women, age 18-24.
“In America I think people view [AIDS] as a homosexual disease but…African American women are affected the most,” Richard said.
According to Richard, Softer Touch wants people to know how to protect themselves and how to stay healthy.
When students reflect on how far the nation has come socially regarding HIV/AIDS, some will agree that society wants to help the cause. Awareness, research and prevention have become common goals for several organizations around the world.
“We definately have a lot more knowledge,” Richard said. “People aren’t as ignorant. People want to talk to them rather than look the other way. They want to find out ‘How are you doing?’ rather than ‘Oh my god, don’t talk to me.’”
Elizabeth Johnson, a junior Marketing major, said growing up, her schools didn’t have HIV/AIDS awareness programs. She had to learn about the disease outside of school.
“My schools were all abstinence only which is a lot of crap because you don’t learn anything,” Johnson said.
According to Johnson, people have changed the way they react to HIV/AIDS.
“It has somehow lost the scariness and that’s not really good,” Johnson said. “It’s like teen pregnancy and the way that people are like ‘Oh, it happens.’”
Fiona Thomas, a freshman Film/Visual Media major, said as a college student, she doesn’t really think about the disease in general. If someone is personally affected by HIV/AIDS, he or she may be impacted by it more emotionally, Thomas said.
Wyatt said she knows that there are a lot of walks that happen in Atlanta, but she thinks it’s important for students to participate in the AIDS Walk.
“We go to Georgia State, we’re a school of 30,000 students, we’re right here in downtown and it’s a big issue here,” Wyatt said. “We all can have a say on how to stop it. It affects Atlanta directly and we live here, we go to school in Atlanta, we should have some kind of interest.”
