The transition year students of Gort Community School will hold a public dramatisation today, World AIDS Day, to help promote awareness of HIV in children and to inform people of the eight international Millennium Development Goals.
The 20-minute outdoor dramatisation, which will be staged at 11am today by up to 200 senior students, is part of the 2008 Young Social Innovators Challenge and will see the group use music and creative movement to help teach their audience about AIDS, the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT ), and the Millennium Development Goals.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs ) are eight international development goals that 189 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organisations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015.
The students are calling on media representatives, local and national politicians, representatives of local NGOs, community organisations, and the public to come out and help publicise the event.
Father Michael Kelly, an Irish Jesuit and an internationally renowned expert on AIDS, will also be on hand during the day to give a keynote speech following the event on the topic of children infected and affected by the pandemic of HIV and AIDS and the impact it has on their lives.
The students said their reason for undertaking the event was that they “believe that it is our responsibility to help promote the Millennium Development Goals and PMTCTs as they can have life changing effects for the better on people”.
