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Nigeria: People Living With HIV/Aids to Trek Against Stigmatization
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Vanguard (Lagos)
30 October 2007
Posted to the web 30 October 2007
Olasunkanmi Akoni
Hundreds of people living with HIV/AIDS, with Governor Babtunde Fashola (SAN) of Lagos State will partake in maiden November and December AIDS road trek tagged "Style born AIDS trek Nigeria 2007" (SART-NIG, 07) in Abuja and Lagos, the initiator and Co-ordinator, Styleborn Magazine, Abiola Afolabi has said.
The event will kick-start from Abuja in November 24th, at Eagle Square while the event for Lagos takes place on December 1st 2007, which is the World AIDS day, from Alausa, Secretariat Ikeja. About 500 volunteers would be engaged in the site route.
Afolabi stated that she had visited some hospitals and the office of the National Committee on AIDS in Abuja to request the participation of people living with HIV/AIDS in the first ever AIDS trek in Nigeria.
According to her, some people are yet to believe that AIDS is real possibly because they have not seen somebody living with it, adding, "That is why we are involving PLWHA in the trek to let people know that AIDS is real."
Afolabi though not an AIDS patient said she had chosen to campaign against the scourge because she had shared birthday with the World AIDS Day, December 1. She also said that she lost her mother in a ghastly motor accident on a December 1 while she was five years old.
She mentioned some notable Nigerians who would also be participating in the trek, saying that Ambassador, John Fashanu and Richard Mofe-Damijo are among them. Afolabi stated that the trek would begin from the Lagos State Government Secretariat Alausa and end at Maryland, Ikeja.
She said that HIV test kits and condoms would be distributed randomly to passersby and participants as the trek progressed to wage war against the scourge and to vehemently campaign against social stigmatization.
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She explained that besides the public sensitization, the trek would also be used to sell her idea of linking the poor people with the wealthy ones so as to provide solace for the former. Her words: "One of my programmes is to link poor people in Nigeria especially orphans who have lost their parents to AIDS with the wealthy ones to provide succour for them," she said.
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