"Helping Hands" / AIDS performance

 I was really shocked when I first heard about the “Camilian Centre” in Thailand. It is a place where lot of local HIV/AIDS positive people live. They do have people there to look after them they have food, but they also have…AIDS. And the bad thing is that a lot of people don’t know about that centre like me and 2 my other friends didn’t.  So after we heard about that centre we decided that it would be a good idea if we started a small project so we would raise the awareness of that centre as well as will donate some money, food and stationary for them.

 My main goals and objectives were to raise the awareness for that people, to donate as much money, food and stationary as possible for the “ Camilian centre”.

The first thing that we did was that during one of the weekly assemblies me Lucy and Gerda performed a dance (mostly consisting of hand-movements) to let people know about our project. I was afraid that people might not pay attention to our project but  after the dance we were more than happy when some student came up and asked that they are interested and wanted to be a member of the project.

  We found an interesting way of becoming a member. We made a lot of nice badges with the logo of the “Camilian Centre” and decided to sell them (for 50 baht each). So the people who would buy the badges would make a small contribution to a charity and meanwhile would become a member of “Helping Hands”. We also put a big board under the clock tower on which, those people who already became the member of “Helping Hands”, put their handprints (we had different colors paint) as a sign of a willingness to help.

  Besides, on the AIDS day me and Gerda did a short performance to show people how AIDS are dangerous and also to help them understand the feelings and thought that HIV positive people have. I was really nervous before that performance, because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to express the feelings and emotions. But the positive feedback that i received after the performance made me realize that I could get the point across the audience as I wanted.

  I think I had reached my objectives as, in three weeks time there was a lot of food and stationary collected. We could raise money up to 5000 baht, and the most importantly we raised the awareness of HIV/AIDS and the “Camilian Centre”, because I think that being informed is one of the most important factors before taking any action.

I believe that we all should lend a helping hand, as there are so many people that need our help.