Calendar of people who lived with AIDS

XI International Conference on AIDS, Vancouver, 1996, abstract 4795 (first version), updated in 2000.

In order not to forget the people who have fought AIDS, to show the spread of the epidemic and to warn as many people as possible, particularly those who still feel that AIDS do not concern them, we wish to create a new calendar, adding to the one already in existence, where each day is given the First name of a person who died of AIDS. Calendar poster (30X40 cm) and disk (Mac XPress) are available.

For each day, the First name shall be the one that was the most often proposed. If the date of death is unknow, the First name will be placed at its usual date (in the other calendars). The first of December will be considered as an "exceptional day" (World AIDS Day). As an epidemic, AIDS is becoming omnipresent, and has common points with other situations and with other diseases : so it will be the same as Child's day, Woman's Day and Cancer's Day. Among these "exceptional days", like some civil or religious feasts, some, as the first of December, will be proposed to be National Holidays.

This project was imagined by "POSITFS" association fighting against AIDS. The first model of this calendar which includes thirty First names, has been published in the issue n·23, January 1996 of "Sida Tout Va Bien", the newsletter of "POSITIFS" association (informations and prevention in all subjects concerning AIDS, particularly all therapeutic approaches, official and alternative). Now, 223 First names are included (22 have been members of association POSITIFS). This calendar poster as been already published in other French newspapers (for example Le Quotidien du Médecin, Vous et Votre Santé). We authorize any person to publish it and transmit it. Our calendar poster is accessible in our Internet url. We hope that the other associations, services and establishments will be interested and participate in this project. The first edition of this calendar has been achieved for 1997.