World AIDS Day: Spread The Word

I was hopping from one blog to another and found myself on a random blog, Diverse Reality, on the internet (actually the author is my first visitor using BlogCatalog). One of the items on the top of his page caught my attention. It told me that "Bloggers Unite - World AIDS Day". I clicked on it and was directed to Bloggers Unite, a group of bloggers that participate by writing on different issues that they advocate every month (I suppose if you have something to say AGAINST it, you can opt to do so).

Right off the bat, I warmed up to the idea of helping a cause by writing about it on my blog. I am not one who can easily make beautiful prose (it might appeal only to me) nor am I the strongest of writers. However, whatever little thing I can write here, I can afford to do so, just to "make a difference" even in the tiniest of ways. In other words, to be counted.

I signed up and here is my post for this month's upcoming event on the 1st of December: World AIDS Day.

Here in my beloved third world country, AIDS is something everyone is aware of but does not really know about. It is an illness that everyone is afraid of and there is certainly a stigma around the whole thing.

For example, an AIDS patient becomes notoriously popular in any of local hospitals here, even among the health practitioners. Anyone suspected of AIDS will be talked about, with nurses either getting way too excited because of the experience (the novelty of it, I guess) or way too afraid to get infected through a myriad of different ways. I know this because I was once a nurse-student.

There are still a lot of things that people don't know about AIDS. Testing for this certainly isn't popular. I think one of the major reasons why this is so is because it doesn't seem real in this place where you don't know anybody at all who has it. Perhaps people who do have it will do all he/she could to hide it. What people doesnt know here is that it is a critical issue all over the world already. With health practitioners reacting like that, then there is definitely a need to increase awareness of the issue. It just won't do that people here won't take the precautionary measures, to take the extra steps to be protected against AIDS simply because the possibility of infection is too remote a possibility.

The world is shrinking as it is becoming "global" and it is always better safe than sorry-- before the reality of this illness strikes home. To my visitors, please join the campaign. Be part of Bloggers Unite and increase AIDS awareness!