Despite the medical advancements that people accomplish every day, sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS remain ominous and pressing issues that warrant the world's earnest attention. H2O, a campus group that formed last semester, strives to spread awareness of STDs throughout the Bowdoin community.
H20, which stands for "Health to Others," was started last semester by Melissa Walters of the Dudley Coe Health Center. Walters previously had headed a campus group called KISS that sought to address issues like STDs and AIDS, but unfortunately the group fell apart when the bulk of its members graduated last year.
H2O's mission statement is straightforward yet powerful. The statement reads, "Our group is dedicated to increasing local and global awareness of STDs and HIV/AIDS on campus and in the community. By working with local organizations, such as Merrymeeting AIDS, and other resources on campus, including other groups, we hope to raise understanding about resources and the importance of safe sex among Bowdoin students and the community. Our plan of action includes tabling, speakers, distribution of educational pamphlets, and raising visibility of the problems and their prevention methods and/or treatments."
Sophomore Elizabeth Sweet, who is now one of H2O's co-presidents, joined a few other students and, under Walters' wing, organized the new group last semester.
"I don't think STIs and HIV/AIDS are addressed enough on campus," Sweet said.
"It seems that the worries around unprotected sex are far more related to pregnancy, and I think that [STDs] are important topics that need to receive some attention because they are real problems, and not just in far away lands," she said.
Personal feelings also influenced Sweet to organize the group. "HIV and AIDS have always fascinated me, but I got more interested after reading a novel about the AIDS crisis in the gay community in New York City in the 1980s," Sweet said. "This club gave me the opportunity to cultivate my interest and perhaps do something to make a difference."
Like Sweet, group member Megan Wyman '06 felt a strong personal desire to raise disease awareness on campus. "I jumped on the opportunity to join before I went abroad to Cape Town, South Africa, because I was involved in an AIDS awareness group in high school and I thought it would be cool to continue," Wyman said.
"After studying abroad I was even more interested in joining because I was forced to face the realities of HIV/AIDS in Cape Town. We learned a lot about the epidemic and were told at one point we could very possibly have come into contact with two to three people every day who were infected with HIV/AIDS," she said.
The group, led by Walters, Sweet, and co-president Amy Lee '07, has a myriad of ideas and plans for promoting awareness at Bowdoin. Walters, along with David Anthony of Merrymeeting AIDS, plans to present AIDS and STD information to students, a first step in nurturing campus understanding.
The group's future projects include spreading information on HIV testing, specifically the newly developed oral HIV test, as well as efforts to invite a campus speaker for World AIDS Day on December 1.
Group meetings are informal, and members are in the process of earning funding from the College for the group to support their projects and ideas. The group is also working on the creation of a charter and is applying for official recognition from the Bowdoin SOOC, the Student Organzation Oversight Committee.
Although most Bowdoin students may never have to deal with AIDS as directly as Wyman has, HIV and STDs are powerful issues in the world and on campus, and groups like H2O strive to communicate the significance of sexual protection to college students who may often feel isolated and immune from the diseases' devastating effects.