AIDS Week Promotes Awareness

Harvard's yearly AIDS Awareness Week, which started yesterday, will feature a healing service, a faculty talent show and a "Gospelfest."

Every day this week, staff at an information booth located in front of either the Science Center or Widener Library will pass out free condoms and pamphlets to interested students.

AIDS "impacts the campus in many different ways. This is an issue that affects all of us," said Linda J. Frazier, a registered nurse who supervises AIDS education at the University Health Services Office of Health Education.

"There are people who are infected and people who are affected on campus," she said.

One of the weeks many artistic activities is slated for tonight. At 7 p.m. in the Lyman Common Room there will be a performance of "Living on," by Emmy-award winning writer Lois Roach. The play explores the impact of AIDS on those who have lost loved ones to the disease.

Art exhibits dealing with AIDS, including one titled "Death Sentence" by Catherine Corman '96, will be on display in the Sackler Museum and the Science Center for the week.

Off-campus, there will be a candlelight march from the Statehouse to Faneuil Hall. The march will be coordinated by the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts.

"The candlelight march is to remember those who died and honor those living with AIDS," said Peter J. Erbland, the communications coordinator for the AIDS Action Committee.

The Rev. G. Stewart Barns, who will be leading a healing service on Sunday and was one of the founders of Harvard-Radcliffe AIDS Education and Outreach, said students have been involved in AIDS education at the College for nearly a decade.

"We had over 80 members our first year," he said. "Up to that point, the AIDS awareness among undergraduates was that AIDS was somewhere else."