World AIDS Day Houston

Community Advocates Shine Spotlight on World AIDS Day

by Reviving Red Ribbon AIDS Awareness in Houston

Houston—A group of community advocates began convening earlier this year to plan activities around World AIDS day 2007 and is looking to revive AIDS awareness in Houston for this year’s internationally recognized day on December 1. The group wants the formerly commonplace symbol of AIDS Awareness – the red ribbon – to be as ubiquitous as the yellow ribbon for support of U.S. troops and the pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness.

The group, called World AIDS Day Houston, was born out of one person’s frustration with the continuing worldwide pandemic. Jane Weiner, artistic director for Hope Stone, Inc. a local theater and dance ensemble troupe, read about the numbers of children in Africa and Bosnia with HIV/AIDS and at the same time saw the focus shift off of the devastating disease.

“I got mad and fed up,” says Weiner, whose Hope Stone dance troupe participates in the annual World AIDS Day benefit performance, The Illuminations Project, now in its sixth year. “AIDS is gaining numbers but losing steam in the public eye. Today, more than ever, AIDS needs to be brought back into the spotlight so we can eradicate it.”

Weiner was involved in the artistic scene in New York City in the late 1980s and saw so many young dancers get HIV/AIDS and die. When her dance partner, Ben, found out his husband had AIDS and subsequently died, Weiner promised herself and her friends that she would always work toward ending the pandemic that has now taken the lives of 25 million people worldwide since 1981, according to UNAIDS.

“AIDS is not going away,” says Matt Harris, chair of the Illuminations Project who has been helping Weiner organize and mobilize this group of community advocates. “It's amazing that we, as a society, still cannot have an open and honest discussion about HIV/AIDS. We are talking about human beings who deserve our compassion and care, not our contempt and disregard.”

The World AIDS Day Houston group has been meeting for the last six months discussing ways to bring about AIDS awareness in Houston. Committee members have been collecting information on World AIDS Day-related events and plan to produce a postcard and website that will list a variety of events that will take place from November 30 through December 2. These events include health fairs, HIV testing events, remembrance ceremonies, religious services, art installations, and, of course, The Illumination Project.

World AIDS Day Houston has also been buying up red ribbons by the thousands. Committee members plan to have them available at community centers, HIV/AIDS organizations, coffee shops, theaters, and bars, as well as at every World AIDS Day related event.

World AIDS Day Houston is comprised of representatives from a variety of nonprofit organizations, including Bering Omega Community Services, Catholic Charities, Montrose Counseling Center, Center for AIDS, Houston Area Community Services, Houston GLBT Community Center, AIDS Foundation Houston, Planned Parenthood, the Gay and Lesbian Latino Organization, and Legacy Community Health Services. There are also representatives from churches, including Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church and First Unitarian Universalist Church, and charitable groups like the Empire of the Royal and Sovereign Imperial Court of the Single Star, Bayou City Boys Club, Bunnies on the Bayou, and the Imperial Court of Houston. They have a website at http://www.worldaidsdayhouston.org/.

“I realized some time ago that there are so many others doing so much on a daily basis to fight this disease and I think this committee is just an extension of that,” says Harris. “AIDS is not just about tragedy but about triumph and above all else...about remembering.”

Started on December 1, 1988, World AIDS Day was created to increase awareness, fight prejudice and improve education about AIDS across the planet. According to UNAIDS estimates, there are now 39.5 million people living with HIV, including 2.3 million children. During 2006 some 4.3 million people became newly infected with the virus; around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35. World AIDS Day is important in reminding people that HIV has not gone away, and that there are many things still to be done.


Hope Stone, Inc. is a not-for-profit arts organization that strives to create the joining of dance/theater in the traditional performance setting, coupled with the teaching of art in the lives of children. Founded in 1997, Hope Stone’s goal is to present performance art in some of the varied ways, shapes and forms. Hope Stone, Inc. has a 2,300 square foot studio at 1210 W. Clay, Suite 26.


The Illumination Project is an annual dance and music performance event held each year on World AIDS Day benefiting a local HIV/AIDS service organization. Now in its sixth year, The Illumination Project is lighting the way for Houston HIV/AIDS organizations by raising much needed funds for community outreach and assistance programs. This year’s unique collaborative event will be held on Saturday, December 1 at 8:00pm at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts and will feature performances by Two Star Symphony, David Neumann, The Elements of Vogue, Andee Scott and Hope Stone with the Houston Boy Choir.