World Aids Day

Today is World AIDS Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness, encouraging testing, and fighting the global specter of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

About an hour ago, President-Elect Obama's released online his taped address to the Saddleback Civil Forum on Global Health (transcript available at The Washington Post's website). I honestly thought the speech could have been a little more convincing, more dynamic, but then again it was just a short, taped video address so what could he really say?

While trying to find a more, er, passionate response to World Aids Day, I came across this video, sponsored by Johnson and Johnson, about the organization Mothers2Mothers, which offers "social, emotional and psychological support" to pregnant African women who are HIV-positive. I know very little about the organization so far, but you can check out the video below:


I don't think this falls into the category of consumer-driven AIDS awareness hype, even though M2M is prominently sponsored by a major company. And, on the surface at least, I like the idea of what amounts to a counseling/mentoring/consciousness raising organization dedicated to bringing women together for mutual support, advice and consolation.

(Updated to add: Bil at The Bilerco Project has a great selection of World Aids Day videos from around the world.)