Last Friday was World AIDS Day; a day when people from all over the globe discussed issues surrounding the international health epidemic. The Concordian spoke to the Director of McGill’s Global AIDS Coalition, Vanessa Redditt, about her motivation for getting involved, what McGill hopes to accomplish and the impact of HIV/AIDS here in Canada.
What is McGill’s Global AIDS Coalition?
We’re a student group at the McGill campus that works on advocacy and awareness [for] global health issues. Our main focus is on the global AIDS crisis because of the severity of the issue, and because of the many socio-economic and political aspects of global AIDS. Our activities range from creating educational events here on campus to lining up speaker series’ and film screenings. We also do various advocacy campaigns, [such as] write letters to pharmaceutical companies and to the government, and [hold] advocacy training workshops.
What’s the Global AIDS Coalition’s ultimate goal?
To raise awareness. We want to get students and the community thinking about the complexities of this issue and to understand more about the global AIDS crisis. It’s to try to take that heightened awareness [and] translating that into action.
Why were you personally interested in the HIV/AIDS cause?
For a long time I’ve been very interested in health and the human right to health. I arrived at McGill two years ago and McGill Global AIDS Coalition was a student group that I was attracted to because they were looking at this health topic, [which] is so interlinked to many other development, human rights and gender issues. I’m a student of international development studies and pathology, so I’m interested in those biological and social intersections of human design and saw this as a way of using my position as a student to do something about an issue that I feel very passionate about.
Do you believe that university initiatives can initiate change on a national level?
I’d like to think that the government will turn its head to the universities across the country that are actually mobilizing around this issue. It’s a really exciting opportunity because there are more than 15 universities that I’m aware of that are using this platform to make demands on the government. Whether that has an impact for Harper… I’m not sure how much he’s listening to the voice of students, but I think it’s one of those things where you just have to be persistent. The more times that message is sent, the stronger it is felt within the Parliament. So, I hope that our voice is heard. But maybe we can act as that agent to raise the awareness so that other parts of the population and communities will also be asking for the same demands.
Is the Canadian government doing enough?
I think that Canada has played a more active role maybe than some countries in addressing global AIDS, but it’s not doing enough in my opinion. I think that’s also the opinion of a lot of people who are working on this issue. We’re promoting a platform of demands [that our] government enhance its commitments to the global AIDS crisis. And a lot of it is just asking them to fulfill promises that they’re already made. Canada needs to pay its fair share for the resources needed, support public healthcare and cancel the debt in developing countries, and grant access to affordable medications in these areas. I think that Canada, by enacting some of those changes, can be an agent in the international community by showing leadership, which might inspire or pressure other Western countries to make similar commitments.
Are Canadians aware of the magnitude of the AIDS crisis?
I think that there are a lot of gaps in our awareness about this issue. AIDS is something that’s going on every day. There is an incredible amount of people that are being infected and affected, and it simply doesn’t make the headlines. A lot of our efforts have centred on the sub-Saharan Africa, but we also need to link it to the local here in Canada and Montreal . There are still a lot of stigma issues and discrimination here in Canada. Social and economic inequalities that fuelled AIDS in Africa are also mirrored in our own context, and people aren’t aware of it. We don’t do any of our cause justice by diminishing the impact of AIDS anywhere.
Comments are closed.