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Orange shirts dotted campus this week, but they weren’t worn by face-painted Riptide fans. Students visited the Sandbar as usual, but bypassed their normal caffeine boost and chose water instead. Pails full of dirty and polluted water lined the normally serene walk up from Firestone Fieldhouse to the Cafeteria after Convo.
These actions were meant to bring awareness to the Pepperdine community as YIFTU (You and I for the Universe) and The Wishing Well Initiative joined together to bring AIDS Awareness and Water Week to campus.
“I want people to evaluate who they are, what gifts they have and what they do with their resources,” said Kelley Charlston, co-director of the YIFTU.
YIFTU is an organization on campus that was opened as a local chapter of the World Vision Acting on AIDS network. Charlston and co-director Senior Wondirad Assefa Tsegaye put together the week of awareness here at Pepperdine. The week started with a 24-hour prayer campaign Sunday night at 9 to kick off the campaign. “If we don’t start with prayer, not a lot will happen,” Charlston said.
Monday introduced the “Do You See Orange?” movement bringing a wave of orange T-shirts with the word “Orphan” written on them across campus. To represent that one in every 20 children in Africa will become an orphan as a result of AIDS, 150 students donned the shirts. On Wednesday the number of shirts multiplied to 300, just as the estimated number of orphans will increase to one in 10 by 2010. Junior Roxy Stahl sported the shirt both Monday and Wednesday to raise student awareness.
“AIDS is something we all know about, but it doesn’t impact us until we can actually see it physically in front of us,” she said.
Tuesday night highlighted the week of events when Princess Zulu, native of Zambia and international spokesperson and AIDS Educator for World Vision’s Hope Initiative, who is infected with the HIV virus herself, spoke to 300 students in Elkins auditorium regarding the need for student involvement in battling against the spread of AIDS.
Junior Dustin Long, head of Service and Community Involvement for YIFTU felt that Zulu was the perfect speaker for their awareness campaign.
“Her personal experience with AIDS is what makes her so credible,” Long said. “We don’t often get to hear from people who are HIV-positive because of the medical condition they are in.”
With a rare vibrancy and a passionate plea, Princess Zulu urged students to take a stand as individuals and as Pepperdine students.
“Tonight is to encourage you, to know that you have so much potential, and you alone can make a difference,” she said. “You are not just young people, you are not just students, you are world changers.”
Princess Zulu ended the emotionally-charged evening by imploring students to embrace their role as the generation that would conquer AIDS.
“Even in Africa young people are the ones making a difference,” she said. “Stand with them, stand with us.”
One way that students could make a difference in the fight against AIDS was to participate in Water Week, a campaign run by The Wishing Well Initiative.
Co-Directors Moe Mutuma and Brendan Groves founded The Wishing Well Initiative just before Spring Break this year and in its first day of collection raised close to $1,000, due largely in part to the number of students who have become involved in the cause. Working with the Blood Water Mission, the organization is committed to bringing clean water and clean blood to Africa.
Their particular goal is to build 1,000 wells in Africa, a project that takes anything from $3,000 to $12,000 a well, depending on the where they are built.
Water Week asked students to abstain from any non-water beverage and instead donate the money they would have spent on those beverages to building a new well in Zimbabwe.
“Preventable water diseases kill 25,000 every day and four children every minute,” Mutuma said. “That makes me feel disgusted, people shouldn’t live like that. We want this week to make people realize that water should be cherished, and that things like this shouldn’t happen. We should be held accountable to the whole world and not just to ourselves.”
The Wishing Well Initiative is hoping to raise $10,000 by the end of the semester so they cannot only build a well but also send a team over to pick a site. However, the most important goal for the organization is to get inside people’s minds and hearts.
“We’ll take anything, time, money or minds,” Mutuma said.
Wednesday, as a part of the awareness week, free and anonymous HIV/AIDS tests were offered at the Health Center. The Wishing Well Initiative also hosted a dirty water trek to represent the miles that many women in Africa walk to get not even necessarily clean water, for their families.
Tonight a “Dear Francis” Convocation will be offered in Elkins Auditorium, documenting the story of two students’ journey to Swaziland. Afterwards there will be a question and answer section with the directors and producer of the film.
Through Friday both YIFTU and The Wishing Well Initiative will have tables in the cafeteria if students are interested in learning more about AIDS or the Water-Blood Mission. Above all, AIDS Awareness week strives to not only make students aware of the issue of AIDS and its impact globally, but also prompt students to actively participate in the fight against the crisis.
“Let’s pursue this fight academically in the classroom as well,” Charlston said. “Service, financially and academically are the three goals we want come out of this week.”
Submitted 03-29-2006
MALIBU, CA
