Wesleyan alumna helps two students renew a decade-old project, the AIDS Wall in Village II.
By Heather Templeton '10
A student paints a block on the AIDS Wall in Village II.
In celebration of World AIDS Day, two Virginia Wesleyan College students hosted a special ceremony on Thursday, Dec. 4 to memorialize and honor AIDS victims. Held in the Monumental Chapel, the ceremony also served as the official unveiling of the renewed AIDS Wall in Village II.
Ashleigh Roberson '11 from Fredericksburg, Va., and Deirdre White '10 from Suffolk Va., brought back the decade-old AIDS Wall project with the help of alumna Kristen Eaton Scheible '00.
Originally created in the late 1990s, the project began after Virginia Wesleyan students took a bus trip to Washington, D.C., to see the Names Project, an enormous quilt made as a memorial to celebrate the lives of people who have died of AIDS-related causes.
"The Wall wasn't about us," said Roberson, who ended the service by sharing thoughts from Scheible. "The Wall was about breaking the silence and getting people to care."
Roberson, who had Scheible as a high school biology teacher, said the alumna helped her with the logistics as well as understanding the history behind the AIDS Wall.
"Kristen played a huge part in the project, helping us to continue the legacy and the anonymity just like the first Wall," she said. "Unfortunately, students in the original club, Students Saving Students, faced opposition from their peers in the 90s because they knew little about the disease."
A series of painted blocks on the AIDS Wall.
Throughout November, the campus community painted a total of 96 new blocks on the Wall, located next to the original paintings. Only a separate color of paint outlines the old blocks from the new – unrecognizable to the common viewer.
"The line society had put between people with AIDS and without AIDS is as thin as the line of paint on the Wall," Roberson said during the ceremony. "We really are all the same."
The students developed the project for Assistant Professor of Sociology Dr. Kathy Stolley's AIDS and Society class. Each student was asked to generate a project that would incorporate awareness for World AIDS Day, internationally celebrated on December 1.
"The epidemic has been going on for nearly thirty years and we have made baby steps, but there is still a lot of stigma and prejudice that is occurring and a sense that people don't take the risk seriously enough," said Roberson. "We hope the Wall promotes education and tolerance and serves as a reminder of those we have lost. We also want to recognize the significance of the original Wall and incorporate the legacy, history and emotion that were put into it," she added.
"We hope the Wall promotes education and tolerance and serves as a reminder of those we have lost." - Ashleigh Roberson "Taking the course and working on the Wall has had its challenging moments for me," White said on Thursday. "AIDS is bigger than this campus, but part of it is personal."
For the project, the class worked closely with the Tidewater AIDS Community Task Force (TACT) to gain firsthand knowledge about AIDS and how to best communicate the information to their classmates. TACT also provided information, educational speakers and resources for the class.
"TACT has helped our students enormously with this project, coming to classes and working behind the scenes" said Stolley. "They are a great community partner and we are thankful for all of their help."
12.10.08