Making AIDS History
International Peace Tiles Project raises HIV/AIDS awareness
By Pryce Hadley, 16, and Anna Burnett, 15, with contributions
from Kelsie Coccia, 13;
Adam Gannon, 13; Clint Remsburg, 13, and Emma Roy, 13
A
group of local children gaze up at a vibrant collage of decorated wooden
tiles at the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum in Marquette. The tiles
contain messages from children very much like themselves, though under
much more dire circumstances. The tiles were created by children halfway
across the world to raise awareness of the pandemic that constantly
threatens their lives, HIV/AIDS.
Phrases such as “Kissing doesn’t kill: greed and indifference do,”
“See into tomorrow,” and “We all deserve a second chance,” provide insight
into the lives of the artists and give voice to the millions of children
who are at risk from HIV/AIDS. According to UNICEF, more than 500,000
children under the age of 15 have died of AIDS and more than two million
children under the age of 15 are living with the HIV/AIDS virus.
Even though the tiles focus on a sobering topic, they convey the hope
and optimism of their creators. One tile depicts the image of the earth
surrounded by a sea of people with a large orange heart in the lower
left-hand corner. Others include warnings and many feature the word
“hope.” Each of the eight by eight-inch tiles reflects the unique personality
of the child who made it. Some consist of simple images painted on wood
while others are more intricate with lace, beads and magazine clippings.
The museum is hosting a collection of 48 tiles in recognition of World
AIDS Day, December 1, 2005. The tiles were brought to the museum through
the International Peace Tiles Project, an initiative that seeks to raise
HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention among youth. Already the project has
involved over 1,000 youth from Bangladesh, Cameroon, Costa Rica, India,
Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, and the United
States. Most of the tiles at the Children’s Museum were made in India.
On World AIDS Day, major displays of peace tiles were unveiled in Johannesburg,
South Africa; Geneva, Switzerland and Jaipur, India. Many smaller exhibits,
such as the one in Marquette, were displayed worldwide.
Louise Bourgault, professor of communication and performance studies
at Northern Michigan University, helped bring the exhibit to Marquette.
Bourgault first heard of the project through an Internet list serve.
She supervised NMU student Wendy Gaudette, who organized the exhibition
in conjunction with the Children’s Museum.
“This issue is of great urgency at the moment because there are worldwide
40,000,000 cases of HIV and AIDS. Also it’s an issue that affects people
in our own country,” Bourgault said. “I felt that this was interesting
because it was involving younger children, and that it would have a
very positive message and it would help children in the Marquette area
relate to children in other parts of the world.”
Peace Tiles Project Creator and Coordinator Lars Hasselblad Torres
of Montpelier, Vermont was inspired to start the project as a way to
raise HIV/AIDS awareness through art.
“I’ve always had this passion for the visual arts,” Torres said. “At
the same time, I’ve been an educator and really enjoy working with young
people, and thought that there might be a way to combine my passion
for the arts and my enthusiasm for working with young people in a global
awareness campaign around HIV/AIDS.”
Torres hopes the project will reach young people of widely varying
experience with HIV/AIDS.
“The goal of this year’s effort is to enable young people to express
their experience with HIV/AIDS on whatever dimension. Those might be
(youth) who are living with HIV/AIDS. It might also be those who are
at risk; they sort of know it’s out there and they’re scared or they’re
totally oblivious. And also for those who may not be at risk; they know
it’s out there and they want to send messages of hope to other young
people around the world.”
A lot of work and collaboration has gone into the project.
“For World AIDS Day I coordinated the activities in terms of developing
the basic materials, helping to find artists who could go to communities
to work, helping to figure out where the murals would go, raising money
and distributing money, creating the on-line forum for publicity purposes,
as well as getting people to share their stories around peace tiles,”
Torres said.
One of Torres’ international collaborators is Bhawani Shanker Kusum,
Secretary and Executive Director of the Indian non-government organization,
Gram Bharati Samiti, which translates to the Society for Rural Development.
“He’s an incredibly committed guy to rural issues affecting women and
youth, and saw a connection between what he’s trying to do and what
peace tiles was all about. You might call him the driving force,” Torres
said.
Kusum set up six workshops in the rural area surrounding Jaipur, the
capital of the Indian state of Rajasthan. He contacted instructors,
developed the strategy for creating the tiles, and involved over 600
children ages 13 through 19.
Kusum was amazed at the quality of the children’s work.
“I was thrilled to see their creativity while making the peace tiles,”
Kusum said. “I had never expected such a wonderful creativity among
the small kids. It was just beyond my imagination.”
Torres feels it is important for the project to concentrate on India
due to its severe HIV/AIDS infection rate. With 5.3 million infected
people, India’s rate is second only to South Africa.
“The reason why India is important is because it’s the place on the
planet where the next demographic bomb is supposed to explode,” Torres
said. “Already in South Africa, mortality rates, which is to say the
number of people dying within the population, has surpassed infection
rates. It’s how you know the HIV/AIDS pandemic has reached a critical
level. India is the place where that’s supposed to happen next.”
Kusum believes that it is crucial to educate youth in the prevention
of HIV/AIDS for three reasons.
“One, they are innocent ones and have been orphaned without any fault,”
he said. “Two, they belong to a new generation that must be protected
from the risks, and three, they are the most efficient group to disseminate
the message.”
Torres believes that peace tiles and other awareness projects will
have a lasting impact on the fight against AIDS.
“It’s an issue that’s staring the world in the face. Peace tiles is
one of thousands of activities people are doing, and if thousands more
people take individual action on an issue like HIV/AIDS then international
mechanisms for fighting AIDS will be a lot more motivated to do their
work,” he said. “Soon enough you’ll have a global mass movement to actually
make AIDS history.”
The project has strengthened Kusum’s optimism for fighting the disease.
“It’s a very unique and wonderful experience to involve the younger
generation through art in the fight against AIDS,” he said. “It has
given us a bright indication of hope to cope with the pandemic.”
Girl with HIV gains hope through peace tile
project
By Pryce Hadley, 16, and Anna Burnett, 15, with contributions
from Kelsie Coccia, 13;
Adam Gannon, 13; Clint Remsburg, 13, and Emma Roy, 13
An Indian girl stares out of a photograph, facing straight ahead, her
guarded expression veiling some past tragedy, and a childhood ended
too soon. Sheba Khan, 13, is infected with the HIV virus. So are her
mother and younger brother and sister. Four years ago Khan’s father
died of AIDS. Because her mother is HIV positive, she can’t find work.
The whole family survives on the small government pension her grandfather
receives, barely getting enough food to eat everyday.
8-18 Media interviewed Khan through e-mail with translating assistance
from Bhawani Shanker Kusum, Secretary and Executive Director of Gram
Bharati Samiti, the Society for Rural Development, in Jaipur, India.
Khan’s mother was shocked when she learned that she and three of her
children were infected with HIV. They were looked upon with pity. Sometimes
the townspeople would give them clothes and food, but there was no one
to comfort them.
“No one was there to console a broken family,” Khan said.
In the rural area of India where Khan lives, HIV/AIDS treatment is
difficult to access for poor families such as hers.
“No medicines for HIV/AIDS are available free of charge and none of
them can afford the expensive medicines prescribed by the government
hospital,” she said. “When there is no surety of even getting food two
times a day, how can we think about the nutritious food the doctor had
advised?”
Khan’s family is desperately waiting for the day when her 15-year-old
brother, Shehbaz is old enough to find work. Shehbaz is not infected
with HIV.
“Then my mother and I myself could get proper food and treatment. Then
we will not be a burden on my old grandfather,” she said.
Khan participated in a peace tile workshop coordinated by Kusum last
fall. Through it, she gained a greater understanding of the virus that
has changed her life forever.
“This is the only event in my life that gave me a great chance to understand
HIV/AIDS,” she said. “Earlier I was simply told that I had been infected
with some very dreadful disease which can never be cured.”
Working on the peace tiles changed Khan’s outlook on life.
“I could believe in myself which I couldn’t do earlier,” she said.
“Now I am hopeful to do something. It has given me a great spirit of
happy life and made me think that a girl like me infected with HIV can
be of some use.”
Khan takes comfort that the peace tiles project will help many others,
not just herself.
“I strongly believe that this project will give a power to the youth
of my age throughout the world to raise awareness on HIV/AIDS,” she
said.
Her compassionate approach toward children with the virus is simple
and sincere.
“The poor children infected with HIV/AIDS must be treated with love
and sympathy everywhere in the world,” she said.
