Still Learning

What a busy and informative week, after much research and reading for the module 1 assignment "Statistics" I have come to the realization that HIV is a much bigger, and widespread problem than I first thought. Coming from a real close family, I would say that I have been rather sheltered when it comes to knowing the problems and crisis of the world. A great example of people being oblivious the the happenings of the world is through politics, its something that we all can relate to, but may not know much about. HIV/AIDS is the same way, most people know it exists and do their best to avoid it, but never consider doing anything to help bring the disease to an end. The fact is that HIV/AIDS is a very real threat to humanity, one which would be foolish to ignore.

The module one assignment on statistics of HIV was rather startling, especially the World Clock link on the assignment page that shows the estimated number of people who are currently living with HIV. I literally sat there for about 20 minutes watching the number continually get bigger. According to that World HIV Clock, every 12 seconds someone contracts HIV, and ever 16 seconds someone dies. That means that the number of HIV cases is always increasing which is a rather frightening statistic. I was also surprised to learn that women seem to contract the HIV disease more often than men. This was a hard statistic for me to wrap my head around at first, associating the HIV disease with other demographics, but then realized that the social standards are not exactly the same for other countries as they are in the U.S. The rights of women differ country to country and are sometimes unfortunately seen as inferior to men (as if a possession) , resulting in easy spread of the disease.

After researching a bit into different organizations that fight the world wide battle against HIV, I managed to come across The Lawyers Collective. The Lawyers Collective is a law based help group based in India that is dedicated to "controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic by protecting and promoting the rights of the people affected by HIV/AIDS, through law reform. legal aid and allied services of advocacy, training and research." This organization is the perfect example of a group of passionate individuals working to protect against discrimination against HIV/AIDS positive people and sexual orientation. They continue to work to protect those already infected with HIV, but also move to protect those vulnerable to contracting the virus. (Lawyers)

This week was quite a wake up call when it comes to fully understanding the HIV disease. The mechanics of how it came to be as a disease, the statistics of who and what it infects, and what people are trying to do about it. With any luck I'll have an even better grasp on the subject matter after module two rolls around.

Layers Collective. (2009) Retrieved september 16, 2009. from http://www.lawyerscollective.org/hiv-aids