BRITANNI HAMM | staff writer
photo | BRITTANI HAMM
Pictures in the AIDS tent show seven-year-old Beatrice who was disowned by her family for caring for her infant niece with AIDS.


Students simulate African children's journeys of discovering that they have AIDS, a killer-disease.

“Real people, real faces: all true stories,” senior youth ministry major Jordan Gash said. “It’s one tent and it travels all around the nation.”

This past week, a tent set up on Trinity Lawn, surrounded by signs depicting staggering statistics regarding HIV/AIDS, grabbed students’ attention. The signs stated facts such as, “African children represent more than 85 percent of all children living with HIV worldwide.”

Visitors to the tent began by watching a short film about HIV/AIDS before beginning their walk through the tent. Entering three at a time, students were given a flashlight, headphones, and an mp3 player to serve as their guide.

“It immediately draws you in,” sophomore nursing major Natalie Hardister said. “You were forced to abandon any notion of AIDS that you’d had before by walking through. All of a sudden, it was something that was very possible. It wasn’t something that was happening a world away in Africa.”

Each mp3 player tells one of three stories of African children personally affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Stephen is a 13-year-old boy from Uganda, Beatrice is a 7-year-old girl from Zambia, and Olivia is 17-year-old girl from Malawi. This interactive exhibit tells their stories through pictures hung on the cloth walls of the tent, audio narration, and a replica of an African village.

“I [went through] this tent six or seven weeks ago and really got touched by the experience,” Gash said. “Just stepping into the life of a child and experiencing it in such a real way, it made people aware of this whole topic. I’ve never had an experience like this.”

Inspired, Gash became passionate about booking the tent for APU. Initially, World Vision, who supplies the tent and materials used inside of it, told him that the next available opening would be in March or April of 2008. However, a cancellation presented the opportunity for APU to host the tent this November instead.

Gash, and a committed team of students including Brittany Peters, Ryan Secrest, and Rachel Cavanaugh, helped advertise and set up the tent, using the stories that were provided by World Vision.

Bold facts hanging on the walls, such as “children as young as seven sell their bodies for food,” demanded the viewer’s attention. The second half of the tour included a visit to a replicated HIV/AIDS clinic. Visitors, in the character of Stephen, Beatrice, or Olivia would learn their fate, much like the children had in Africa.

“When I went up to the clinic window and got to see if I was positive or negative [for] HIV, I was so into it that I actually got nervous. I was genuinely concerned,” Hardister said.

Freshman political science major Hannah Marrs reflected on this concern during her visit to the HIV/AIDS clinic.
photo | BRITTANI HAMM
Pictures on the walls of the tent depicted African children's on-going battle with AIDS.
“He was negative; Stephen didn’t have AIDS. I was relieved, but at the same time my heart broke. There were probably many children who had gone through [or] seen things that Stephen saw, and were [HIV] positive,” Marrs said.

After learning their fate, students entered a room in which they were surrounded by dozens of pictures hanging from the ceiling of the tent of Africans who were HIV positive.

“The room where they had all the pictures [was a] wake-up call. I don’t remember seeing a single picture that was repeated. You can’t ignore a hundred pictures in a room,” Hardister said.

In the final room of the tent, students were encouraged to write a note to those living with AIDS and make a beaded bracelet. The different colored beads represented the different aspects of African life to pray for, such as: political, spiritual, environmental, economical, community, and medical well being for the country.

“I was left wondering what would have happened to Beatrice if [her infant niece] Miriam really did die. She would have been totally alone. Seven-years-old. Alone. Already rejected by the other members of her family because she chose to support that one child with HIV,” Hardister said. “AIDS is something that is very real.”
Upon exiting the tent, students are surrounded by opportunities to support AIDS relief by either donating money that will be used toward development, orphanages, or sponsoring a child.

“I donated money to the cause, but I really want to pray about [how] I can get involved more long-term,” Marrs said.

All the booths are focused on the community of Malawi, Africa.

“I went down there before and saw the beginning stages of this community,” Gash said. “We really wanted to focus all of our things on this one community, because we can’t tackle all of Africa.”