Stephen, age 13

AIDS Experience Week Is Nov. 26-Dec. 1 at Cal State Fullerton

World AIDS Day Symposium Features Ugandan Moses Dombo

October 29, 2007

By Debra Cano Ramos

Stephen is a 13-year-old boy in Uganda, where 530,000 are infected with HIV and AIDS. He is abducted by rebel soldiers, who force him to kill and rape other children. Rescued from the rebels, he waits to find out whether he will die of AIDS.

Visitors to “AIDS Experience Week” Nov. 26 through Dec. 1 at Cal State Fullerton can experience Stephen’s world and learn his fate. Students, staff, faculty and community members are invited to visit the World Vision AIDS tent exhibit, which takes visitors on a haunting journey inside the personal narratives of children affected by AIDS.

“This will be an eye-opening experience for our campus community, as well as the community at large, about the AIDS pandemic in Africa,” said Yen Ling Shek, coordinator of Cal State Fullerton’s Multicultural Leadership Center, one of the sponsors of the weeklong event.

Cal State Fullerton is partnering with NewSong Church North Orange County to organize the free, public event.

“AIDS is a reality. It’s an issue that affects us all, regardless of religion, age or race,” said Angie Pang, community outreach coordinator for the Fullerton church. “We want people to come out and get involved so they can make a difference both locally and globally.”

The traveling tent exhibit, which will be set up in the campus Quad, will be open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nov. 26-30 and from 12:30 to 2 p.m. Dec. 1., which is World AIDS Day.

A resource fair featuring community organizations and health agencies, and free, confidential HIV testing also will be held during AIDS Experience Week.

An AIDS symposium Dec. 1 features a 9:15 a.m. keynote address by Moses Dombo, World Vision’s director of international programs for HIV and AIDS, plus a Cal State Fullerton faculty panel discussion that follows. The symposium will be held from 9 a.m. to noon outdoors in front of the Humanities-Social Sciences Building.

Dombo, who will discuss the global impact of AIDS, has worked to help some of the world’s most vulnerable children. “I’ve always had a passion to help children and not see them suffer,” said Moses, who grew up in a village in eastern Uganda.

He joined World Vision in 1986 and was the program manager in Rakai, Uganda, considered the epicenter of the global AIDS pandemic. “So many people I worked with died. Many children were left behind,” he said.
In 2002, Dombo went to work for Family Health International, serving as executive director for the Hope for African Children Initiative. He returned to World Vision this year.

Despite witnessing the tragedy of AIDS firsthand, Dombo says there is hope, but adds, “There’s a lot work to be done.”

The 10:15 a.m. Cal State Fullerton faculty panel discussion will feature Anthony DiStefano, assistant professor of health science; Davina C. Ling, assistant professor of economics and director of the CSUF Center for Study of Economics of Aging and Health; and Jorge Fontdevila, assistant professor of sociology.

Ling has published numerous papers on her HIV/AIDS-related studies. Some of the topics she has researched in the past year include the environmental health and safety of Chinese sex workers and the psychological health and suicidal tendencies among female street sex workers.

“A lot of my publications have to do with health behaviors and intervention among those who are most at-risk for AIDS,” Ling said.
With an increasing number of studies showing a connection between violence and people with the incurable disease, intervention could help stem the growing trend. That is the focus of DiStefano’s current research and the topic he will discuss.

Through his research, DiStefano discovered that it is when people are first told they are HIV positive that they are at higher risk of becoming suicidal. When they disclose their disease to their partners and others, they are at a higher risk of becoming the victims of violence, depending on how people react to the news.

“Knowing that these types of connections exist,” DiStefano said, “I want to discover what medical and social service providers are doing to address these issues.”

Fontdevila will give a presentation titled “Cross-Cultural ‘Miscommunication’ between Mexican Gay Men and their U.S. Sex Partners: Implications for HIV.”

World Vision and numerous university student organizations are also sponsors of the event. For more information, call 657-278-3211 or visit http://newsongnoc.net/aids/.