Approximately 1300 people in Maine live with HIV/AIDS, according to the state’s Department of Health and Human Services. Their needs — as well as the importance of prevention, so as not to add to those numbers — will be highlighted at the State House on December 1, World AIDS Day, with (hopefully) more than 1300 individualized postcards made by Mainers.
The Maine AIDS Alliance and the Maine College of Art are spearheading what organizer (and MECA alum) Katie Diamond calls the “designed-and-signed” campaign — placing postcard kits in local galleries and art spaces (including the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, the North Star, Aucocisco Galleries, and the USM Center for Sexualities and Gender Diversity), in the hopes that citizens will use the provided supplies to decorate the front of the cards, then sign the backs, which contain “a message to decision makers urging them to continue to support Maine HIV/AIDS services.”
The AIDS Alliance will bring the cards (the 2009 version of the AIDS quilt!) to Augusta on December 1, while HIV/AIDS organizations worldwide promote this year’s World AIDS Day theme: “universal access and human rights,” with the focus on getting antiretroviral therapy to those who need it in low- and middle-income countries.
The postcards will be available at participating locations on First Friday, and through November.
Related:
Losing common ground, Review: Fig Trees, HIV safety net in jeopardy, More 
- Losing common ground
Among the chaos of fractious voices at the 17th International AIDS Conference, it’s hard to discern a clear message, and even harder to know who might be receiving it.
- Review: Fig Trees
Here's a first: an AIDS documentary nested inside an opera that's obsessed with albino squirrels, figs, palindromes, and Pythagoras.
- HIV safety net in jeopardy
The 4000 Rhode Islanders living with HIV were on the mind of Dr. David Gifford when he went to Governor Donald L. Carcieri, and then the House Finance Committee, in late 2005 and early this year, with hat in hand.
- The changing face of AIDS
There’s no doubt that AIDS is a different disease than it was two decades ago. Rebecca Haag wants to make sure we’ll be able to say the same thing 20 years from now.
- Art dodgers
David S. Bernstein points out some key facts about who voted for Michael Flaherty in “Can Flaherty Woo Yoon?”, but he neglects to mention that, if Sam Yoon had won, he would need the base that voted for Flaherty, and he would also need to woo Flaherty’s support to win the mayor’s seat.
- Letters to the Portland Editor, October 10, 2008
If I could type my applause, I would. Your last two issues, specifically the cover articles, were superb.
- The changing face of AIDS - side
- Living with HPV
The results are “normal.” I breathe a sigh of relief. But should I be relieved? It’s been two years since I heard a registered nurse tell me “You have HPV,” and I am still getting scraped from the inside out, still making appointments to see doctors, and still terrified that I’ll get cancer.
- Moving On
When AIDS Project Rhode Island opened its doors in 1985, President Reagan had still not publicly uttered the word “AIDS.”
- Casting spells
In 1915, Harvard University and Museum of Fine Arts archæologists digging in a rocky cliff at Deir el-Bersha unearthed the 4000-year-old tomb of the Djehutynakhts, an ancient Egyptian governor and his wife.
- Activist Tales
Cleve Jones told a fascinating tale about how the assassination of Harvey Milk led him to become a prominent bridge-builder between the LGBT community and the labor movement.
- Less
Topics:
This Just In
, Health and Fitness, Domestic Policy, Political Policy, More
, Health and Fitness, Domestic Policy, Political Policy, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Contagious and Infectious Diseases, HIV and AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Care Issues, Health Care Policy, Less
