Senior music industry studies major Michael E. Alvarado and his band play before BPL at Wednesday’s Face AIDS benefit concert. Photo by Casey Gahagan | The Appalachian.

He dreamed he was a child in Africa, infected with HIV/AIDS. He was scooped up in a sports car and transported to the United States, where, after receiving proper medical attention, he was cured.

At that point, Seligman knew he was meant to fight HIV/AIDS.

“The main thing that made me want to go to Africa was [the desire] to immerse myself in their culture,” Seligman said. “But while I was there, I wanted to provide a service. I wanted to give back.”

For 10 weeks, Seligman taught at a public primary school in Uganda. While there, he delivered an HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention presentation to the children at the school.

“Being able to provide information for the kids, and to see them learn, was the most rewarding thing I could have possibly done,” he said. “What interested me most was the social stigma associated with HIV and AIDS. People know it’s bad, but they don’t know any causes of it or how it spreads.”

Though treatment is available to those in Africa, Seligman said many often go undiagnosed. Among the 200 children enrolled in the school he taught, no child was reported as HIV/AIDS positive, according to school records.

Yet, Seligman said, even by using family-shared resources, including razors and knives, the disease can spread and affect countless adults and children.

In Uganda and Rwanda, where Seligman spent most of his time, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in 2007 averaged approximately 940,000 in Uganda and 150,000 in Rwanda, according to statistics from the CIA’s World Factbook.

Compared to other countries, the reason for lower rates in Uganda and Rwanda, Seligman said, is primarily due to strong government support to provide HIV/AIDS awareness education and prevention via partner organizations, including Face AIDS, a nonprofit student campaign to help fight AIDS in Africa.

In 2005, the organization was founded by three college students who attended a refugee camp in Zambia, where they met Mama Katele, an African woman diagnosed with AIDS, and knew they must do something to spread awareness and find a cure.

Prior to his trip to Africa, Seligman was visiting a friend in California, when his friend’s father, a professor at Stanford University, handed Seligman a flyer about Face AIDS, explaining that the organization was founded by one of his students.

Immediately, Seligman approached junior broadcasting electronic media major Alio Na-Allah, a native of Niger, about founding a chapter.

“Once he told me what the organization was, there was no way I was not going to be involved,” Na-Allah, Appalachian’s Face AIDS president said. “In West Africa, people are not informed about AIDS, and that’s one of the contributing factors.”

The club, which meets bi-monthly in Plemmons Student Union on Wednesdays, raised $150 by selling awareness pins made by Rwandan HIV/AIDS victims last semester.

All money raised from pin sells by each of the 150 nationwide Face AIDS chapters is matched by Partners in Health, a health and social justice organization that benefits victims and their families by providing them with vaccines and transportation to local clinics.

Appalachian’s chapter held a benefit concert featuring Michael Alvarado and BPL at Legends Wednesday.

Despite the snow, member and freshman physics major Zack R. Pruett believes the event was a success. Next year, Seligman hopes to remain involved.

“I want the [membership] numbers to grow, I want the involvement to grow and our activities, aligned with our mission statement, to increase,” he said. “I want to give people the opportunities that I was lucky enough to be born with, and that’s the whole point of Face AIDS – giving people the resources they need to be equal in society, to have what they want and to be happy.”

Story: MEGAN NORTHCOTE, Lifestyles Reporter
Photo: CASEY GAHAGAN, Photographer

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