Support For International Change

HIVE Liverpool Goes To Southampton For The 1st Annual SIC-UK AGM

sam — Sun, 06 May 2012 14:28:21 +0000

HIVE Liverpool’s Committee visited Southampton over the weekend of the 16th April for SIC UK’s first annual conference and AGM. I’ll keep this blog post short as I suspect there is a longer one coming from the National Committee.

It was excellent to meet other SIC UK/HIVE committee members from all three branches and hear their trials and tribulations as well as plans for the future; there were some great ideas shared between the groups. The weekend had numerous informative talks covering a wide variety of HIV-related topics, as well as debates and specialist speakers.

The highlight of the weekend was the ball on Saturday night, a joint venture between SIC UK and Southampton General Hospital. There was a massive raffle for the charity, champagne on arrival, a photographer, a sit-down-meal, bands, a DJ and even Krispy Kremes for sale afterwards. It was a thoroughly enjoyable night and great fun was had by all. To say there were a few sore heads the next day would be an understatement, but that is always the sign of a good night.

HIVE Liverpool Committee at the ball

The weekend as a whole was brilliant and we would like to say a massive thank you to the National Committee for organising it, and also to our excellent HIVE Southampton hosts. HIVE Liverpool has definitely benefitted from the sharing of ideas over the weekend. It was great to see so many people so excited about the future of SIC UK and HIVE and we all went back to Liverpool feeling re-invigorated and appreciated.

P.S. The ball raised an impressive amount for the charity, but i will let the National Committee reveal exactly how much, because it was their hard work that made it happen.

HIVE Liverpool’s Annual Bumper Gig and Bar Crawl Raises £460!

sam — Sun, 06 May 2012 13:17:06 +0000

It was that time of year again, HIVE Liverpool’s Annual Bumper Gig was upon us. With only a few days between returning from Easter and the gig, there was no time to lose and it was all hands on deck for the last preparations and publicity. Facebook was bombarded with event posts and the uni was covered in posters.

This year we introduced HIVE Bumper Gig wristbands that not only got you entry to the gig, a free raffle ticket and a red ribbon but also got you drinks offers and free entry at numerous clubs in Liverpool after the gig. A bar crawl was also added after the gig this year so that those who couldn’t make it till later didn’t miss out on the fun. The raffle prizes this year included tickets for the Liverpool Wheel, meals out, a bottle of vodka, 28 shots, cinema tickets, clothes vouchers and haircuts (to name a few)

With the new poster up, the cakes out and the HIVE logo wallpapering the room, it was safe to say Bumper had thoroughly been converted into HIVE colours. The bands were tuned up and the collection buckets were out, all that was left was to kick off the evening, a feat performed admirably by the funky toe-tapping sound of Spread The Jam, our first act on stage. They performed lots of great songs including an excellent cover of Jamiroquai’s Cosmic Girl.

Spread The Jam performing

The steady arrival of more and more paying guests continued as our next act, Will Murray, stepped up to the stage. Armed with just his guitar, Will wowed the crowd with a number of acoustic songs.

Next up was Manchester based band Secret Pilot, who performed several songs including their hit single Lucy and their b-side No Sign of the Truth.

Secret Pilot performing

Our headline act of the night was, once again, the fantastic Brazilian Samba percussion band: Batala Liverpool. They blew us away with their impressive combination of dancing and drumming, ending the gig with a bang.

A small contingent of guests then went off for the pub crawl, visiting numerous venues including Walkabout, where we were treated to free champagne with our wristbands, and Vodka Revolution where there were several discounted cocktails for HIVE guests.

A big thanks to several people for making the night so successful: all our acts who performed at Bumper, Bumper for hosting us, the other clubs for their drink discounts, those places who provided raffle prizes and to our event organisers Jankee and Rachel.

But, most of all, a big thanks to all the guests who came, making our Annual Bumper Gig and Bar Crawl one of the most successful yet; it raised an incredible £460 for Tanzania!

HIVE Southampton takes on record amount of teaching over Easter!

Sangeetha — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:56:22 +0000

Easter is always a busy time for the HIV Education (HIVE) team at the University of Southampton, but this year we have surpassed ourselves in teaching over 30 classes across six Hampshire schools in March: The Gregg School in Southampton, Westgate School in Winchester, King Edward VI School in Southampton, Milton Cross School in Portsmouth, Hounsdown School in Totton, and Swanmore School in Swanmore. Here’s a little bit more about what we got up to:

King Edwards

Three of our team: Kay, Stewart and Alex went to lead our final session of the year with the sixth form students of King Edward VI School in Southampton. Sixth form teaching is a fantastic opportunity for our student teachers to explore some of the more sensitive themes surround HIV/AIDS through the use of news articles such as ‘Should gay men be allowed to donate blood?’ and looking into the ethics of making HIV home testing kits available to the pubic. As ever, it is a delight to work with the pupils of King Edwards, who are always so eager to discuss their views and explore different sides to each argument.

Westgate

Once again, we were thrilled to be invited along to become part of Science Week – held in Westgate School, and our sessions with the pupils of Year 9 gave them the perfect opportunity to explore and understand some of the biology behind HIV infection. Teachers Aoife, Clemmie, Sophie, John, Nick, Stewart, Paddy, Kay, Hannah and Emily lead the pupils in ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire?’ to test the pupils knowledge, and finished off with a Science Experiment: the transmission practical – to demonstrate how HIV can spread rapidly in a community if individuals do not make sure to test for HIV at regular intervals. We were thrilled to get fantastic feedback from Head of Science – Vinay Sharma, who said “As always, your team were very professional – they were so aware of how to deal with the different age groups that they were working with; they had a sensitivity to the questions that pupils were asking and dealt with them very well.” Thanks once again to the school for having us, and we look forward to returning again next year.

Milton Cross

Our Schools Coordinator Alex did us proud this year by arranging teaching sessions with yet another new school, Milton Cross in Portsmouth. Teachers Emily, Stewart and Hannah taught four consecutive lively classes of Year 10 students. With SIC’s goal of inspiring the next generation to act in mind, it was a privilege to be directly part of the education of these pupils, and hope that we challenged a number of their attitudes throughout the course of the morning. Spirits were certainly high, but it was a great feeling to be able to maintain the students attention, to again, great credit from their teachers. Feedback received was extremely positive, with one teacher describing the session as “An engaging talk providing information of how HIV can be contracted and it’s implications. Hopefully students will now be more open when discussing sex, HIV and other STIs.” Another said, “I felt the students enjoyed the session and are much better informed about HIV as a result.”

And finally…

Swanmore School

HIVE Southampton ends the year with a fantastic new school!

After successfully recruiting another new school, HIVE Southampton gathered a massive 10 teachers for the final teaching of the year at Swanmore College of Technology! A mix of new and old teachers contributed to what were described as “such interesting and professional sessions…” and were sincerely thanked for “the time and effort that went into doing them.”

The sessions consisted of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” teaching where we were surprised by the quality of answers by many of the students, followed by a thought-provoking UK based case study about a young girl who’s recently contracted HIV. Both teaching materials sparked interesting, and controversial conversation as well as covering key learning points regarding HIV/AIDS basics, transmission, prevention of sexual transmission, and progression of the disease

It was truly inspiring to work with such intelligent and inquisitive young people. Thank you Swanmore! We thoroughly enjoyed the day and look forward to teaching with you again soon!

Southampton General Hospital Spring Charity Ball

Louise — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:39:59 +0000

Preparations are in full swing for the Southampton General Hospital Spring Charity Ball, with all proceeds going to SIC! The SIC UK National Committee (plus several other honorary members!) are working tirelessly to ensure a fantastic evening on April 21^st at the DeVere Hotel.

The ball will be attended by a mix of 300 healthcare professionals, academic staff and students, all in attendance to demonstrate their support for HIV education and prevention. The evening will begin with a champagne reception accompanied by music from a jazz orchestra; guests will then be serenaded by a barbershop quartet as they are seated for dinner. Following a delicious three-course meal, after-dinner entertainment will include speeches, magicians and more music from a live band and DJ. Some truly incredible prizes have also been secured for what’s set to be an exciting raffle….oh and don’t forget the Krispy Kreme donuts available at midnight to keep everyones’ energy up for a night of dancing!

Don’t miss out on a wonderful evening that aims to raise both awareness of HIV/AIDS and money for the educational campaigns that we believe can make a difference. Please email Clare at clare@sichange.org.uk if you would like a ticket.

SIC UK National Committee visits HIVE Belfast

Louise — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 20:08:54 +0000

Since expanding HIVE to Belfast in 2011 the SIC UK National Committee has been excited about visiting the northern Irish city and seeing the great work they have been doing. They have had a very active first year and have achieved a phenomenal amount.

Five of the national committee (Clare, Ruth, Rachel, Kesh and Louise) took the short flight from London to Belfast on Saturday 17 March. We were kindly hosted by Peter and Becky along with Ruth and Fergus who together made sure we had a very comfortable stay and a fantastic time. Our trip coincided with St Patrick’s Day, sadly we missed the parade but we took a bus to see the sights and enjoyed celebrating St Patrick’s Day in the evening with our hosts.

On the Sunday we had a very productive day after a proper breakfast at Maggie Mays. Clare started off by setting us a challenge to chronologically order main events that have occurred in the history of SIC – we all learnt something new from our history.

We took time to review the excellent achievements that HIVE Belfast had made so far; such as, having 70 trained teachers, working with the university to improve attendance at the student union GUM clinics, developing local partnerships with other HIV charities and starting to plan fundraising events.

We revisited the HIVE teaching material and introduced them to the sixth form lesson discussion articles. Kesh ran a workshop on how to teach, whereby the focus of this session was to give our trained teachers strategies to have successful sessions with difficult loud and quiet classes. In addition to this Rachel and Kesh told their tales from Tanzania.

We finished with a pub dinner and plans for the future.

Thank you again to Peter and Becky for hosting us. We look forward to seeing the HIVE Belfast committee at the SIC UK National Conference on 21 April 2012.

HIVE Southampton help sixth-formers to teach about HIV/AIDS to fellow students

Emily — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:20:18 +0000

On Friday 9th March, my two friends and I taught in a small school in Cornwall about life in Africa, global health and the transmission and prevention of spread of HIV. It was a really important subject for us as we’re off to Africa in the summer and wanted to take the opportunity to let our fellow pupils know why we’re going, what the big issues surrounding HIV/AIDS are, and what they can do to help.

We taught six classes of pupils aged 10 to 16 – and it was a fantastic experience! From the little year fives who we had running about in the playground learning about the life of children in Africa to the year elevens, who played for millions of pounds worth of ‘money’ to learn about HIV, everyone had a wonderful day, and enjoyed learning just as much as we enjoyed teaching them.

It surprised and slightly concerned me how little people were aware of what seems to me to be such a massive problem facing the world and it meant a lot to be the ones who were imparting this knowledge to others, knowing that if nothing else, the pupils would be a little more conscious of the big issues facing our world today. I definitely think I took more from the day than I was expecting to. Teaching is no mean feat, much more about the listening than the talking, and every now and then a pupil would say something incredibly insightful that made it all worthwhile. It is sometimes unnerving to see how perceptive young people can be, even concerning a subject they don’t know much about.

We’re off to Africa in several months, and it will be an incredible experience, but this was a learning curve I didn’t expect along the way, and one I hope to continue learning about in the future. Many thanks to St Josephs School for having us, and to Emily & HIVE Southampton for their support in helping us spread the knowledge about HIV to the pupils there!

Grace Waterhouse, 17, Student at Truro College, Cornwall
with Lily Robinson and Grace Losasso

HIVE Southampton wins MEDSOC Charity of the Year!!

Sangeetha — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:15:20 +0000

HIVE Southampton is excited to announce they have won this year’s MEDSOC’s Charity of the Year! It was the first time the awards were held and it was incredibly exciting that HIVE Southampton were even nominated for a few different categories, but came away with one of the top awards, Charity of the year. A number of committee members were there on the night to except the award and we are all proud to except it and have our hard work recognised.

Southampton does Blind Date…

Sangeetha — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:07:12 +0000

…Was there love in the air that night?

After the success of last year’s Blind Date, HIVE Southampton joint forces with Southampton Medsoc to match over 34 couples on this year’s blind date!! The night started in 3 different classy locations, where the couples met for the first time and moved onto various other locations around Bedford Place. Some were looking for love and others just a chance to mingle and everyone seemed happy with their dates for the night!

There was also a surprise performance from The Manband who serenaded 2 lucky girls on dates with members of the group.

The total money raised from the night was a fantastic £258.22!!!

SIC featured on Eco18!

lindsay — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 04:38:43 +0000

Special thanks to our friends over at Eco18 for featuring SIC ‘s volunteer opportunities. Check out their website, a collective of writers with a common goal-to live a healthier more natural lifestyle. SIC is a big fan of that!

Friend of Tanzania? We Are!

Kim — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 04:51:19 +0000

Marafiki wa Tanzania, or Friends of Tanzania(for all the mzungu out there) is a non-profit charitable and educational organization devoted to identifying and supporting worthy projects in Tanzania, collecting and disseminating information on the life, culture and development of Tanzania and bringing together people interested in supporting this diverse East African country.

Friends of Tanzania/ Marafiki wa Tanzania

FOT has created an incredible network of organizations dedicated to the growth and development of the nation. Learn more about Friends of Tanzania and other noteworthy TZ based organizations by checking out their website: http://www.fotanzania.org/