AIDS Awareness activities in progress during AIDS Day

A signature campaign, street play, posters, paintings, a pledge, and performance by the school children of Jamshedpur, were all part of the intensive awareness programme undertaken during World AIDS Day for AIDS Awareness. These activities underscored the importance of a grass-root, community-based effort to combat the spread of the disease.

Tata Steel is the nodal agency in Jharkhand for creating AIDS Awareness among the community. On December 1, World AIDS Day, the company started the programme with a city-wide signature campaign. The campaign was launched by Mr A N Singh, Deputy Managing Director, Corporate Services. He was the first to sign on a canvas, as a mark of his commitment to the company’s anti-AIDS campaign.

Congratulating the city on having controlled the menace through awareness, education and counselling programmes, Mr Singh said, “the disease continues to remain menacing and the efforts to combat it need to be strengthened.” Two trucks mounted with these canvasses and other information material including posters, paintings, essays and poetry on AIDS, created by the children of Jamshedpur, travelled the length of the city through the day. These canvasses were displayed at the end of the day at the Tata Auditorium, within the XLRI campus.

A Nukkad Natak team emphasised the need to be cautious against the disease, through a street play. Its cycle rally attracted more and more people to participate in the campaign.

Within the company, the heads of department, observed a moment of silence and read out the company’s pledge to reaffirm its allegiance to the principles and values of the HIV Positive & AIDS Control Policy.