International AIDS Candlelight Memorial

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Strategies Choosing Activities
Activities form the core of your event and often depend on the goals of the memorial. If your goal is simply to remember those who have been affected by HIV/AIDS, consider lighting candles at night or early evening to symbolically commemorate their lives. If your goal also is to educate about HIV/AIDS, consider inviting a speaker from a local clinic or hospital to explain health issues around HIV/AIDS, its social implications, and recommendations for local community resources. In addition to remembrance and education, consider choosing activities that create community dialogue about HIV/AIDS and influence local and national policy-makers to give more attention to prevention, care and treatment. Choose activities that resonate with everyone, and are culturally appropriate and sensitive to AIDS-affected populations. Below are some tips for choosing activities.	Building a Team Making a Plan Finding Resources Choosing Activities Integrating Advocacy Promoting the Event Working with Media Evaluating Results
Sample activities: Lighting candles – They will symbolize the living memory of those lost to AIDS. Light candles in the evening and raise them to the sky in remembrance; Educating about HIV/AIDS – Set up information booths. Invite HIV/AIDS educators. Distribute educational materials. Create educational games and drama skits; Community dialogue about HIV/AIDS – Create opportunities for community leaders and members to come face to face to talk about HIV/AIDS in the community, and how the community can come together to address the disease and fight stigma; Musical and dramatic performances – Music and drama often can contribute to the importance of the occasion. Include songs, dances, poetry readings, and drama skits; Presentations and speakers – Invite political leaders, community leaders, HIV/AIDS workers, health-care professionals, peer educators, and others to speak about the importance of AIDS awareness and what communities can do to prevent AIDS; Spiritual or cultural rituals – These activities can demonstrate the significance of the memorial to a community, and often include prayer and the reading of religious texts; Reading of names of those lost – Invite a speaker or audience members to read names of those lost to AIDS in the community, or ask participants to call out names; HIV testing and condom distribution – Consider setting up a booth or a room for voluntary HIV testing by a professional doctor or nurse, and distributing condoms; Award community leaders – Offer awards and honor community leaders fighting AIDS, such as community health-care workers or doctors at the event; Calling for community action – End the memorial with a “Call to Action”, motivating and explaining to participants ways they can take future action against AIDS. < Finding Resources \| Integrating Advocacy >