A Room Of My Own

This past Sunday, I attended the International Women’s Day Wall of Words in Bloomfield, Ontario. On this unseasonably warm and beautiful day, the town hall was bursting with guests in unexpected numbers. Women of all ages, and men too, came out to celebrate Women’s Day. The theme at this particular event was Heal Mother Earth. International Women’s Day is a reminder that we must continue to work together and understand those issues effecting women today. This day directly precedes National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on March 10th which challenges us all to be inspired, but furthermore, to follow through with action. That brings me to a couple of ladies who are doing just that. They are Karyn of The Fabulous Giver and Luvvie of Awesomely Luvvie and they are ‘Rocking the Red Pump’. Check it out… http://theredpumpproject.blogspot.com/ In closing I leave you with a commanding quote spoken by Roz at the Wall of Words that resonated that day; We are not afraid of our ignorance....

December 1, 2008 marks two decades of increased awareness, improved education and a deeper understanding of the HIV\AIDS pandemic world wide. Here we are twenty years since the first celebrated World AIDS Day; a good time to check our progress. Over time, we have seen society go through polar reactions to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The range goes from irrational pandemonium in the mid 1980’s involving chaotic grocery shopping incidents and an assumed HIV infected sneeze on the produce, to today’s almost apathetic annoyed disposition. Has our reaction to HIV\AIDS become comparable to the general reaction to a car alarm? That is, the warning is there, but no one believes it is their car, so everyone just gets annoyed by the alarm. Everyone except the poor bugger you see running towards the car almost in panic mode abusing his key alarm button in his attempt to quiet the beast. The real beast is ignorance. Health Canada calls the epidemic here ‘severe and deeply troublesome’. Thousands of Can...