 "Photo: Joy Alicia")
A global epidemic has taken lives for decades, and the World Vision Organization believes California State University Fullerton students can be part of the solution.
Since Monday, students and faculty have visited "The AIDS Tent Exhibit," a large brown tent placed in the center of the quad. Participants remove their backpacks, cover their ears with headphones attached to MP3 players, and await their turn to discover what's inside the brown cloth walls.
From the headphones' speakers, a voice instructs participants where or when to walk, sit or observe their surroundings as a child delivers an audio narrative of their struggles in Africa and their familiarity with the AIDS epidemic.
Unlike lectures filled with statistics, PowerPoint presentations, or televised images of flies swarming infants, the exhibit is an interactive experience.
Pots, maps, pictures, clothes hanging from a clothesline and other items create a village setting theme.
The Seattle Times reported that World Vision felt the tent would be a powerful tool to educate and inspire.
"The whole goal is to get people to really feel what it's like to be a child in Africa in the middle of an AIDS pandemic," said Mike Yoder, World Vision's experiential director.
"After bringing in speakers and showing videos we thought, 'We've got to go deeper. If young people are really going to understand AIDS in Africa, they're going to have to experience it somehow.'"
CSUF student, Erin Stapleton, said she was so moved, she "teared up."
"I learned more than what I thought I knew. It touched me a lot," Stapleton said. "I knew before this that I wanna help. I wanna actually go and help.
"[The exhibit is] really emotional. It gets to you. The way they set up the props made you feel like you were [in Africa]. I'm trying to go to Africa next summer to study abroad."
Angie Pang, of the New Song North Orange County Church said she's been working to bring the display to CSUF since May.
"We partnered with several organizations, the Multicultural Resource Center, Volunteer and Service Center, Health Center, intervarsity on the flyer," Pang said.
She recalled her journey through the tent.
"It was very sobering. There's some striking images. There's still a lot to process when you exit the tent. I think when people walk out of it; they wonder how they can make a difference."
William Chen, a CSUF student and Christian Fellowship club member, said the tent affects people differently.
"We get a lot of mixed responses," Chen said.
"Some people walk out devastated with a lot of questions afterwards about this. It brings a whole new perspective. In our society, [AIDS] isn't something that's always on our televisions. [AIDS coverage] is just absent."
With large, painted, wooden boards aligning the walls, across from McCarthy Hall, students hurrying to their destinations stopped in their tracks to read the bright colored AIDS statistics near the exhibit.
The narratives of the featured children tackled subjects ranging from young girls engaging in "survival sex" for money or food, hunger, violence, assault and childbirth mortality.
Pang of the New Song congregation said a steady stream of people have experienced the exhibit.
"I think there's a buzz. President [Milton Gordon] went through the tent on Monday, the vice president of student affairs [Robert Palmer] went through on Tuesday," Pang said.
"People walk out and say they just didn't know [of the atrocities in Africa]," Pang said. "Some people didn't know they could make a difference."
Pang said the AIDS exhibit is a reminder of the devastation that occurs on the large continent.
At the back of the tent is a petition students can sign, which needs 6,000 signatures. The petition will be taken to Congress to re-authorize the Global AIDS Bill by the end of 2007.
The exhibit runs through Friday from 11:00-8:00 p.m. and also on Saturday from 12:30-2:00 p.m.
On Saturday, CSUF will host an AIDS symposium. Assistant Professor and Directror of the Center for Study of Economics of Aging and Health Davina C. Ling is scheduled to be one of the panelists.
For more information, visit worldvision.org and http://newsong.net/noc/.
