Stop AIDS Training Hits the South Coast
February 27th, 2009This post was written by Diarmaid. You can read more posts by: Diarmaid or more posts in Campaign News
Over 40 Student Stop AIDS Campaigners converged on Brighton last weekend for our very busy three day annual training event. Old campaign hands from places like Sheffield and Nottingham were joined by some new blood from Bournemouth and Bath to hear from a series of expert speakers and to plot the course of the campaign for the coming year.
Students Partnership Worldwide (which coordinates the Student Stop AIDS Campaign) put on the weekend in partnership with the International HIV/AIDS Alliance.
The workshops covered all aspects of the campaign and featured staff from the DFID HIV team (the man who led the writing of the UK AIDS Strategy!), the Alliance, SPW, the Stop AIDS Campaign, as well as a prospective parliamentary candidate – Simon Burgess.
The intensive schedule mixed information and learning with campaign strategy and planning exercises to ensure everyone was heading back to their universities with an action plan for the months ahead.
We’ll be producing a report on the whole weekend to circulate to you all – so if you didn’t make it to Brighton you can find out everything you missed.
The feedback on the weekend was really great and everyone went away brimming with enthusiasm. A mass performance of the “Stop AIDS is Boom Dynamite” song (thanks Leeds) on Brighton beach followed by a near naked Tom hurling himself into the sea sent everyone off on a high – ready for the work ahead!
First on the agenda is the student week of action starting on Monday, followed by the National Day of Action on the 24th when we campaigners from across the country will be meeting with Under-Secretary of State for International Development, Ivan Lewis MP in London. Find out more about the Day of Action here.
Thanks so much to everyone who helped out over the weekend, and thanks to everyone who came – you were hugely inspiring!
