Welcome!

Welcome to SF AIDS Adventures, a blog chronicling the service-learning journey of twelve students and two instructors in the class "Silence is death: Interdisciplinary perspectives on HIV/AIDS in San Francisco". Our ten week class culminates in a week-long service trip over spring break. We hope you are interested in our experiences!

Course Description:

In 1981, the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle reported, "A mysterious outbreak of a sometimes fatal pneumonia among gay men has occurred in San Francisco and in several other major cities." The New York Times called it, a "rare cancer". On the streets, this fear-striking disease was known as the "gay plague". San Francisco has been and continues to remain at the center of the US AIDS epidemic since the beginning. In San Francisco alone, there have been 27,592 cumulative AIDS cases, 75% of which were among gay men. In 2006 alone, San Francisco reached an estimated 965 new HIV infections. Patients with HIV cover all walks of life, spanning multiple ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations. Most of these patients do not receive adequate primary care or even proper social conditions such as food and housing.

This ASB trip will investigate the US HIV epidemic from a variety of perspectives, with emphasis on San Francisco's unique role. Students will work with organizations that serve HIV/AIDS in the Bay Area, potentially establishing lasting relationships with AIDS community. In addition to exploring the biological, historical, and societal aspects of HIV/AIDS, students will confront the issues of stigma, prejudice, and social exclusion that remain among the major challenges in tackling HIV/AIDS. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said at the 2002 World AIDS Day, "The fear of stigma leads to silence and when it comes to fighting AIDS, silence is death." Through a combination of service and learning, we hope to instill in students a personal desire to break the silence and advocate for HIV/AIDS--be it in the dorm, throughout the Bay Area, or on an international scale.