Date:01/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/01/stories/2008070161670300.htm

Kerala - Kochi

Red Ribbon Express in city from July 4

Staff Reporter

Special train is here to create awareness on AIDS

Train started from New Delhi on December 1, 2007
Exhibition in train to be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

KOCHI: The two-day halt of the Red Ribbon Express in the city will begin from July 4. The Minister for Health, P. K. Sreemathy, is expected to inaugurate the exhibition on the special train that will be here to create awareness on HIV/AIDS.

The train, which arrived in Thiruvananthapuram on June 28, is on its way across the State touching Kollam, Alappuzha and Kottayam before reaching here and will complete its sojourn in the State by July 9.

The seven-coach train had left Delhi on December 1, 2007 and is expected to return after covering 9,000 km through 180 districts and 43,200 villages of the country. To spread the message into places that are not touched by the Red Ribbon, a Cycle Caravan and a Bus Caravan would also go around the nearby villages where the train is stationed.

The exhibition will be in three coaches, the fourth coach has arrangements for a training programme for groups of people to learn about the disease and work towards creating awareness. The fifth coach has a counselling and medical services with two male and two female counsellors. Two doctors (a male and female each) are also available for consultation regarding sexually transmitted diseases and related issues. There will be no HIV/AIDS testing facility onboard.

The sixth coach will be the office of the chief executive officer of Red Ribbon and the seventh coach will be the sleeping quarters for the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan volunteers, involved in spreading awareness programme to villages. The exhibition in coach one will have display of educational material, interactive touch screens and 3-D models, the second coach will focus on HIV/AIDS linked Government programmes like the National Rural health Mission, Prevention of Parent to Child Transmission programme, Jyothis — the Integrated Counselling and Testing Centres and the third coach will focus on HIV within socio-developmental context.

Six teams of Cycle Caravans will be going across the villages here. Each team will visit four places a day. Bus caravans will be designed like the railway coaches and two buses will be visiting three villages a day covering 12 villages in the district.

The training period on the Red Ribbon will have three sessions of two hours a day. Each batch can have 60 participants. The exhibition will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and no platform ticket will be required to reach the train at Ernakulam South Junction.