Actions 2024:

Talk and Dance: The Silence of an Indelible Mark

As part of the events for World AIDS Day (December 1st), we invite you to an afternoon of reflection at Miramar:

🗓️ Friday, November 29th
📍 Miramar Cultural Center
🗣️ Talk: Living with HIV
🎭 Contemporary Dance: THE SILENCE OF AN INDELIBLE MARK by Sebastián Mieres Herrera. An artistic expression to reflect and move us.
💪 An opportunity to hear testimonies, raise awareness, and bring visibility to the realities of people living with HIV.

Free activity. Limited capacity. RSVP required.

Re-signifying emotion made body, through being in motion.

WORLD AIDS DAY Informative Campaign

Setup of an information booth at Plaça Cap de la Vila in Sitges, to provide information about HIV and carry out educational actions against stigma towards people living with HIV:

🗓️ Sunday, December 1st from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
📍 Plaça Cap de la Vila in Sitges

Contact voluntariat@colorssitgeslink.org if you want to help us promote the sexual health prevention actions organized and fostered by Colors Sitges Link.

 

Manifesto Essay (English)

For World AIDS Day 2024 and to end AIDS by 2030.

December 1 marks World AIDS Day, a time to remember and support all those affected by HIV. AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome and is a disease caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which weakens the immune system—the body’s defenses.

Having HIV is not the same as having AIDS. Some people live with the virus for many years without showing symptoms of the disease, enjoying good health. These individuals are HIV-positive but do not have AIDS, yet they can still transmit the virus to others.

Some individuals carrying the virus have become undetectable and therefore non-transmissible.

Since 1988, every December 1 has been marked with a red ribbon—a day of significance in the fight against discrimination and stigma, which the AIDS epidemic has long endured. It is also a day of remembrance and hope. For many, it is a painful day, but the red ribbon transforms it into a day of communion, resistance, human connection, and solidarity. For some, it may feel like the hardest day of the year, yet this is why we must reclaim it and turn it into a powerful moment of unity.

In the early years of the AIDS pandemic, the region of Silos became a ground zero. Garraf was at the eye of the storm, and the Comarcal Hospital of San Camilo—the “Camilos”—transformed into the frontlines, a war hospital where a silent and hidden battle was waged, far from the public’s gaze. Barcelona and Badalona hospitals also fought a hard battle, one that claimed many lives.

This year, in 2024, World AIDS Day highlights the theme: Take the Rights Path. Or in other words: protecting Human Rights is essential to ending AIDS by 2030. Inspirational figures, committed allies—that’s the call to action from the December 1st Committee, with the rallying cry: BLOCK THE STIGMA!

World AIDS Day 2024

This December 1, we want to emphasize the importance of having positive role models at the public and community level—people living with HIV who make themselves visible and inspire others not to carry the weight of stigma and fear. In safe environments, these individuals can also share their status publicly if they so choose.

For this, we also need committed allies—people who may not be HIV-positive but share our values and take responsibility for promoting and expanding the best practices already in place to transform societal realities and combat stigma and discrimination.

Join us in commemorating this day on Sunday, December 1, from 11 AM to 3 PM at Plaza Universidad in Barcelona. Open and free for everyone.

The Loss of a Champion

For Silos, once again at the eye of the storm, the loss of activist Isabel Pruna on March 8 left us orphaned—without a role model, an inspiration, or a committed ally from the very beginning. Her absence is enormous. Isabel led the fight against AIDS with solidarity and love, confronting stigma with the tools she had at hand: needle and thread.

Her story must be retold. Isabel Pruna, who went out into the streets to raise money, asking Sitges’ artists to contribute to a campaign at Cap de la Vila. A simple table with surprise envelopes, each one a winner of etchings, drawings, or embroidered pieces—full of hope and support for the patients of the “Camilos” hospital and their families.

Through her spontaneous and fierce gestures, she provided the hospital with basic and essential tools to make patients’ stays more humane: a refrigerator for food containers, a sofa bed for long vigils, and a microwave to heat water for tea. Her positive and proactive attitude in the face of adversity broke barriers. She taught us to shed the corset of oppression, breaking down walls of misunderstanding with resilience.

Isabel Pruna remains our Elisabeth Taylor, our champion, our ally. Her legacy is immense, despite her small stature. She left us her tapestries, embroidered with the passion and will of a woman of iron. To uphold her banner is our duty—her memory is our memory.

In November 2021, Isabel Pruna Andrée received the Pepito Zamora Award for her exceptional work in defending Human Rights. Today, UNAIDS announces its campaign to end the disease, just as Isabel envisioned. She captured this in her tapestries, dedicated to doctors, children, and everyone, tied with the red ribbon and the loving embrace of a courageous daughter, mother, and grandmother.

2024: Take the Rights Path

The world can end AIDS if everyone’s rights are protected.

With human rights at the center and communities leading the way, the world can eliminate AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

The substantial progress achieved in the HIV response is directly linked to advancements in human rights protections. In turn, these advancements have driven broader progress in realizing the right to health and strengthening health systems.

But gaps in ensuring human rights for all hinder progress on the path to ending AIDS and harm public health. Now, rising attacks on rights threaten to erode the progress achieved so far.

Ending AIDS requires reaching and engaging all people living with, at risk of, or affected by HIV—especially those most excluded and marginalized. Gender equality is a cornerstone of a human rights-based approach to AIDS. Acceptance, respect, and care are vital.

Laws, policies, and practices that punish, discriminate against, or stigmatize individuals—whether because they are women, girls, members of key populations, or other marginalized communities—block access to HIV prevention, testing, treatment, and care.

Similarly harmful are laws, policies, and practices that hinder the work of those providing vital HIV services to affected communities or advocating for reform.

Let’s end AIDS through respect for Human Rights.

#WorldAIDSDay2024 #EndAIDS

The Sitges Town Hall Will Commemorate World AIDS Day

The balcony of the Town Hall will display a commemorative tapestry created by Isabel Pruna.

📅 Monday, December 2
⏰ 12:00 PM
📍 Sitges Town Hall (Manifesto Reading)

An event to remember, reflect, and reaffirm the commitment to fighting stigma and discrimination related to HIV.

 

 

 

Solidarity Gala 2024, World AIDS Day

Next Saturday, December 14th, the Solidarity Gala for World AIDS Day will be held in Sitges.

The Colors Sitges Link Solidarity Gala aims to raise funds for the association’s campaigns and services promoting health, sports, and support services for people living with HIV.

🗓️ December 14th from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.
📍 Hotel Calipolis in Sitges.
Link for more information.

Discover more from Colors Sitges Link

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