Date:08/11/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/11/08/stories/2007110857920600.htm

Tamil Nadu

Children unite against AIDS

Staff Reporter

They will conduct field trips to rural areas to spread message of HIV/AIDS

UNITED IN SPIRIT: R.Ashwathi (left), a Plus One student of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, donating books and stationery to the members of ‘Roja Koottam,’ a children’s support group for HIV/AIDS in Coimbatore.

COIMBATORE: School students in Coimbatore are forming a forum to fight HIV/AIDS. “Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS” is an initiative of R.Ashwathi, a Plus One student of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, who has been helping children living with HIV/AIDS.

She has been interacting with the children who are part of ‘Roja Koottam,’ a support group formed by children infected or affected (those who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS are affected children) by the disease. “These children need society’s support to be able to continue their studies,” says Ashwathi. Most of the members of Roja Koottam are taken care of by Native Medicare Charitable Trust (NMCT).

The children’s forum plans to conduct field trips to rural areas to spread the message of HIV/AIDS.

Students from more than nine schools in which Ashwathi had conducted seminars on the need to remove the stigma attached to the disease, will be part of the forum.

The students have vowed to spend their birthdays or any such special days with the children of “Roja Koottam” and also carry the message across to their peer group.

Ashwathi had collected about 500 books from the schools she visited and assisted the volunteers of NMCT to set up a children’s library. Stationery such as notebooks, pencil boxes, pencils, erasers, sharpeners, pens and colour pencils are distributed among the children of “Roja Koottam.”

The amount donated by the schools is also used to fund the computer education of a student in the “Roja Koottam.”