WARAYA launches commitment book for World AIDS Day commemoration and human rights day celebration

By LAIMINH MABULAY
November 27, 2010

CATBALOGAN, Samar  –  Double event, double celebration. The Waray-Waray Youth Advocates (WARAYA) and the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines – Samar Chapter (FPOP-Samar) have prepared a 10-day signature campaign starting on December 01, 2010, in time for the World AIDS Day Commemoration; and will conclude on December 10, 2010, which happens to be the Human Rights’ Day Celebration.

Entitled “Commitment Book Tour: Pages of People’s Promises for the Prevention of the Pandemic”, at the center of the campaign is the Commitment Book which shall be brought to select schools and colleges to gather signatures in support of the HIV and AIDS Education and Prevention. The book tour will end on December 10, 2010 in time for the Human Rights’ Day Celebration.

While the gathered signatures are to symbolize each signatory’s pledge of commitment, the Commitment Book is supposed to symbolize the spreading of awareness about HIV and AIDS as a collective goal to be shared by everyone.

The campaign’s conclusion on another international event – the Human Rights’ Day – is also a way of emphasizing human rights as an important angle of the HIV and AIDS awareness campaign. It is meant to convey that access to information and services for the prevention and management of the disease is a right that everybody is entitled to regardless of gender, status or religion.