The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Red Ribbon Express to spread AIDS awareness

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 29, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Red Ribbon Express to spread AIDS awareness

Special Correspondent

Artistes, doctors and counsellors will spread message on AIDS

CHENNAI: In a bid to spread HIV/AIDS awareness and to achieve behavioural change among the vulnerable sections, a train — Red Ribbon Express — has been planned.

To be flagged off simultaneously at four places — Kanyakumari, Jammu, Jabalpur and Guwahati — on August 15, the nine-coach expresses will have about 120 performing artistes on board, in addition to medical practitioners, counsellors and activists.

Stop at 80 villages

Each train is scheduled to halt in at least 80 villages, before culminating at Nagpur in about six months' time, said M. Balasubramanian, Zonal Director of the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, which is behind the project along with the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the National Aids Control Organisation.

During the journey period, at least 30,000 Red Ribbon Clubs would be formed in various parts, he said, adding that reaching the still-to-be-reached villages would be the main objective of the project.

Expressing satisfaction over the awareness campaign here, the State representative of the UNICEF, Tim Schaffter, said the behavioural change among the high-risk group as well as the vulnerable group must be the focus now.

He also stressed the need to spread the "real accurate risk perception" among the youth. "It is a long-term effort, for which long-term partnership is required," he said.

Mr. Manivasan of the CAPACS said that reaching the rural youth "outside the organised compounds" was the challenge before the activists.

C. Mahalingam, Director of Medical Services, said HIV/AIDS had assumed the proportion of a huge social problem.

The participants were told that though there were about six lakh HIV/AIDS persons in Tamil Nadu, nearly 85 per cent of them did not even know that they had been infected.

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