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Jamming to STOP AIDS: music and arts bring focus on children hit by virus
By Kit Shangpliang on 18 Sep 2007
In northeast India’s Shillong, the hills are alive with the sound of music, this time not just for fun but also for a cause to spread awareness on HIV and AIDS in the midst of two thousand people.
In a place where the tradition of silence is very strong, the STOP AIDS Music Concert - September 15th 2007, organised by World Vision India’s East khasi Hills Area Development Programme was an eye opener that positively influenced thousands of college students, government officials, NGOs and the general public.
A range of music genres and popular bands performed to provide background to professional artists headed by Khraw Lanong from Dusseldorf, Germany, as they express the issues of children affected by HIV and AIDS on canvas.
Nine-year-old Don does not know about HIV, or that he is living with the virus. He is too young to young to make sense of all that had happened to his life so far. His neighbours suspect that his parents died because of AIDS, and tend to stigmatise even his aunt’s family who now takes care of Don. His father was a soldier and his mother was a homemaker. His aunt said that the time he spent with his parents was something that "Don remembered but hardly talked about".
"I am so glad I could bring my passion to contribute in helping children like Don," said artist Khraw Lanong, who believes that this event is pushing him and his colleagues to concentrate more on specific social issues like AIDS.
"This is the time where young people need to live a responsible lifestyle, and I can see this concert is contributing to that," said song writer-singer David Ashkenazy, whose song "Count on me" was used as an anthem during the Sixteenth AIDS Annual Conference in Toronto, August 2006 and lwas ater translated and sung in six different languages.
"Poverty and the rite of silence derived from the age-long stigma have not helped parents or care-givers to prolong the lifespan of people living with AIDS. And children are the worst hit," says Dr Joseph Lalhmingliana, World Vision India Programme Officer – HIV and AIDS.
India’s northeast is a place where the social problems of economic poverty, urban migration, militancy, drugs and AIDS converge. Social-based organisations or the government cannot tackle one problem alone. They need a concerted effort to provide solutions to the problems by simultaneously looking at all of them.
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