On May 16, International AIDS Memorial Day, the students of different educational institutions of the city went to Uritskogo Street with the slogan “Know to live!” and had an event of social indifference.
The idea of the event belongs to the Creative ideas’ Studio “Postscriptum”. This year it was sponsored by the City Student Council under the City Administration, the Charitable Fund “Obereg”, Irkutsk Regional Branch of All-Russian Public Organization “Russian Red Cross”.
Suddenly, young men appeared at one of the central streets of Irkutsk, stood on the perimeter of an improvised triangle made from cardboard bricks, the signal strip and the chalk line. Silent scene lasted about an hour and demonstrated the commitment of all stratums of society to destroy the wall of misunderstanding between people with and without the virus. As one of the event’s organizers, Elena Fitisova noted: “This scene suggests that any person can be the target of the virus, regardless of age and social status”.
The main purpose of the event was to remind Irkutsk population that HIV-positive - are the same people as we all do. Anyone of us could be HIV-infected.
Not far from the silent scene was put up a stand at which all interested people could show solidarity with HIV-infected people, writing a “+”.
Red Cross specialists were near the stand and answered all passerbies’ questions about modes of HIV transmission and its prevention. As Nina A. Ageeva, PR Specialist of Irkutsk Regional Branch of the Russian Red Cross announced, she was surprised that “the youth of the city are indifferent to the problem and they organized on their own initiative such a bright and interesting event”.
At the time of informational stand’s activity, young activists handed out information leaflets about HIV prevention to passers-by. There were distributed about 350 copies. In addition, approximately 450 pedestrians in that day agreed to attach red ribbons on their clothing – a sign of global solidarity with HIV-infected people.
Among the passers-by there were young people with placards bearing the inscription “If I am HIV +, will you shake hands with me?” According to young people, about four hundred people shook hands with them.
Reaction of Irkutsk citizens was mixed: many people said that they were not concerned, that they could never be HIV-infected, because in their opinion “only drug addicts and prostitutes can have AIDS”. Meanwhile, the official statistics of recent years shows a different picture: about 60% of new infections are accounted for sexual transmission of HIV infection. And the greatest share of HIV-infected is between the ages of 20 to 39 years, most of them are people who do not belong to the so-called risk groups - to the category of injecting drug users and people involved in the sex - business.
The event lasted about an hour; the whole team of young people had disappeared as quickly, as it had appeared.
The organizers thank all those who remain indifferent to the problem of HIV / AIDS. 

Contacts:

Deputy Chairperson of Creative ideas’ Studio “Postscriptum”
Ekaterina Fitisova
tel. 8-950-09-04-197,
e-mail: kit_fit@mail.ru

Deputy Chairperson of the City Student Council
under Irkutsk Administration
Petr Treskin,
tel. 8 950 1111 032,
e-mail: treskin-ne@ya.ru

PR Specialist of
Irkutsk Regional branch of the Russian Red Cross
Ageeva Nina
Tel. 89025787937
e-mail: pr@redcross-irkutsk.org