About 50 people attended "Yesterday: A World AIDS Day Benefit," held last night in the Ethnic Cultural Theater. Sponsored by the Q-Center and Voices for Planned Parenthood (VOX), the event was held from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., to coincide with World AIDS Day Dec. 1.

"Globally, there are more than 7,000 new HIV infections per day," Jamil Sullivan said as he emceed the event.

More than two-thirds of those newly infected people, Jamil said, are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The event featured poetry readings; informational speeches by representatives from various health, minority and other organizations from UW and Seattle; a screening of Yesterday, a film about a South African's family's struggle with AIDS; and a performance by the "progressive" band Question.

Though HIV/AIDS is a global epidemic, the event focused on the diseases' impact on South Africa, where more people are affected by HIV/AIDS than in any other country. This past summer, 20 UW students studied in South Africa as part of a CHID Exploration Seminar.

While in South Africa with the seminar, senior Jaime Marsh and several other students volunteered with Planned Parenthood Association of South Africa (PPASA), which is the oldest Non-Government Organization in the country working to combat HIV/AIDS. Marsh, who co-coordinated the event along with Suleman, said the goal for the night was to raise $2,000 for PPASA through donations.

Marsh, a social work and public health major, is the social justice programmer for the Q-Center. Suleman graduated in 2007 with a CHID degree.

Marsh said the PPASA's mission, which includes providing assistance to impoverished families, funding children to attend school, raising awareness of HIV/AIDS and providing free HIV testing, is key to curbing the epidemic.

"The children and their education is the hope for the future," Marsh said. "The PPASA allows them to eat and have money to go to school, where they can get information to protect themselves [from HIV/AIDS]."

She said that for $30, a South African child can attend school for one year.

Several staggering statistics about the HIV/AIDS epidemic were presented at the event. Suleman said that there are 33.5 milllion people in the world living with HIV/AIDS and that 23 million of those people are in Sub-Saharan Africa, 61 percent of whom are women.

Erick Seelbach, the director of prevention and education for the Lifelong AIDS Alliance, said it is impossible to understand the gravity of such "mind boggling" numbers.

"I have to bring it down to one person," said Seelbach, who works directly with people affected by HIV/AIDS in Seattle. "The suffering I see everyday, it breaks my heart."

UW professor Ratnesh Nagda, who helped lead the exploration seminar in South Africa, read a poem at the event. Nagda claims that Americans have an imperative to help stop the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other global crises such as poverty and hunger.

"Our reality, in a globalized world, is not separate from anyone elses' reality," he said. "Either we're impacting something or being impacted by it."

Annabel Cholico, a senior law societies and justice major who participated in the exploration seminar and volunteered with PPASA, professed similar convictions about people's responsibility to work to combat HIV/AIDS. Reflecting on first-hand experience with families in South Africa affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty, Cholico said, "You become angry at yourself, angry at America; we take so much for granted."

While some may question if an event such as 'Yesterday' can have an actual impact, those involved with the event were confident that they were making a difference.

"Every time somebody talks about HIV, it makes an impact," Seelbach said. "I believe with love and compassion, we can make a difference."

[Reach reporter Jacob Olson at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]