Over 500 organizations across the nation celebrated National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day Monday, including Prairie View A&M University’s Panthers Promoting Healthy Decisions.
In conjunction with the Texas Department of Health Services and Brubakers, PPHDs hosted a mini pep rally in the MSC area, which featured posters and bull horns being used to grasp students’ attention.
Students were offered free HIV/AIDS and Syphilis testing in the MSC ballroom. Over 200 students were in attendance getting tested, receiving red ribbon pins and coupons for a free cheeseburger, courtesy of Brubakers. Later that evening, there was also a debate held in New Science.
PPHDs Educator Tayler Jackson said, “I think it’s very sad how many people on Prairie View’s campus feel that HIV/AIDS is an irrelevant issue, especially when it’s affecting the Black community.”
According to statistics provided by Panther PPHDs, 40 percent of African-American men are raped in jail, released, and become intimate with both sexes, causing further spread of the virus. Eighty percent of all HIV infected women are African-American. African-Americans as a whole make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but are accounted for nearly half of the population who have acquired the HIV/AIDS virus. Every nine minutes and 30 seconds, someone is infected with AIDS in the United States.
During the debate, students posed the question of whether society or the government is the blame for these statistics.
Free HIV testing and condoms are available Monday-Thursday from 2 p.m.-4:30 p.m. in the Owens Franklin Health Center.