The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News March 4, 2005

Obies march for AIDS funds
In their element: Approximately 50 Obies, along with other student activists from all over the nation, participated in the Student March Against AIDS in Washington last weekend.
 

Upwards of 50 Oberlin students streamed into Washington, D.C. last weekend to participate in the Student March Against AIDS, a rousing demonstration that called for immediate action on the world’s most urgent health crisis.

The Feb. 26 march was a three-hour event attended by over 4,000 student activists. Sponsored by the Student Global AIDS Campaign, the protest consisted of a rally in front of the White House at Lafayette Park, a march to the Capitol building and a second rally in front of the government seat. Demonstrators hailed from colleges as close as George Washington University and as distant as the California State schools. Bearing posters and chanting loudly, they held up vehicular and pedestrian traffic along the downtown Washington protest route.

Senior Michelle Weinberger chairs the Oberlin chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign and organized the Oberlin contingent that represented the College in Washington. She has worked with the SGAC for two and a half years and felt “amazed” at the “energy in the crowd” from Oberlin, a group that was assembled in only two weeks. For her, the march was the fulfillment of an ideal, the material evidence of the mobilization of young people around a critical issue.

Protesters at the march called for an agenda of five key goals regarding the mitigation of the AIDS crisis. In calling for the full U.S. funding (an allotment of $1.5 billion) for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and for the reauthorization and full funding of the Ryan White CARE Act, marchers advocated a congressional agenda that would lend support to the most effective programs that care for AIDS victims and prevent the disease’s spread.

In matters of foreign policy, one of the SGAC’s key requests is that the U.S. engages in multilateral and bilateral debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries. The rationale behind this radical demand is the belief that debt payments could be better used to provide public health services.

The final requests that marchers put on the table dealt with current approaches to AIDS policy at home. The first was a plea for “science based,” comprehensive sexual education in schools.

Whereas the Bush administration has consistently supported programs that teach abstinence as the only way to prevent AIDS transmission, SGAC argues that comprehensive programs also teach about the importance of condoms and other barrier methods.

The second alteration that SGAC promotes in domestic AIDS policy is a call for the development of reasonable healthcare for those living with or at risk for contracting AIDS. Such healthcare would feature affordable drugs, compensation for caregivers, drugs accessible to children and full funding for domestic treatment initiatives.

“It felt like we were doing something,” said first-year Penina Eilberg-Schwarz, who marched with a poster reading “Stop Coddling Pharmaceutical Giants.” She continued, “It always feels good to shout a little and hold a sign.”

Oberlin’s delegation to the AIDS march stood strongly behind these demands. Obie signs called for debt cancellation and proclaimed “Condoms Save Lives.” And, despite the 14-hour round trip to and from Washington, Oberlin students enjoyed the activism and camaraderie of the march.

First-year Mena Boyadzhiev was impressed with how the marchers “were so passionate and driven.” She enjoyed being surrounded by people who “have devoted their lives to fighting AIDS!”

Some Oberlin students stayed in Washington D.C. for Sunday’s “Youth Summit on Ending AIDS” at George Washington University and Monday’s lobby day. Weinberger stayed through Monday and was able to plead the case for SGAC’s five points at the offices of Sen. DeWine (R) and Rep. Kaptur (D), two of Oberlin’s congressional representatives.

Though the Student March Against AIDS was motivated by political ends, it was also a time of encouragement and renewal for many of the Oberlin participants. Sophomore Marten Frazier protested as part of the college contingent and acted as a bus captain on the trips to and from Washington. He felt “really happy to be involved with the march” and appreciated the “true sense of solidarity among students from all over the country.”
 
 

   


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