AIDS Awareness Week at Virginia Tech

It’s AIDS awareness week, it seems like this kind of thing happens every year and to some, it’s just another week of some club trying to push their agenda on everyone else on campus to make money. However, the LGBTA at Virginia Tech and the LGBT Caucus have both banded together to design a full week of events to educate Virginia Tech students and whomever is willing to listen about AIDS and the issues that are associated.

Matthew Stoll, a sophomore in Biology at Virginia Tech and an active LGBTA member, explained how AIDS awareness week has evolved over the years. “It used to e AIDS awareness day. In the early 2000’s it was changed to AIDS awareness week, because it just seemed like one day was not enough,” said Stoll.

As a part of AIDS Awareness week Barbara Maberry, an independent social worker, was invited to speak at the Colonial Hall on Tuesday to students about implications of STDs and HIV, sex offenders and social issues surrounding each of these topics.

Maberry is a former health educator for the Council of Community Services in Roanoke. She decided to leave her job to earn her Masters in Social Work degree from Radford University in 2005 in addition to her Associate’s degree in Mental Health from Virginia Western Community College. She has spoken to other students at Hollins University, Virginia Western Community College, Roanoke College, Ferrum College, Radford University and two local high schools. “When I talk, I’ll talk to anybody who will listen,” Maberry said.

Before her speech, she displayed thirty-some pamphlets accompanied by other resources that were free for the attendees to pick up and use. She opened up the speech with a few jokes to capture the audience’s attention, then went straight to the facts.

“When two people who have HIV have sex, they make a new kind of HIV,” explained Maberry during her efforts to dispel myths about the virus. Maberry also explained how this also applied to different types of STDs; when two types are combined, a new unidentified kind is created. “HIV and STDs are not limited to what science knows,” she added.

Mayberry also expressed her worries about increasing rates of STD and HIV infection. She mentioned that there are both anonymous and confidential HIV and STD test sites all over the state.

Club Red Ribbon, The final event for AIDS awareness week, is scheduled to take place in Squires at the Commonwealth Ballroom at 9 P.M. tomorrow night, where free HIV testing will be available. The event is meant to attract those who are not usually reached by AIDS awareness week events.