Red Ribbon Express At Coimbatore
Minister for Rural Industries and Animal Husbandry Pongalur N. Palanisamy and Coimbatore Mayor R. Venkatachalam listening to an AIDS awareness message, after inaugurating the Red Ribbon Express exhibition on wheels on HIV/AIDS in Coimbatore on Saturday. Red Ribbon Express, a national-level AIDS awareness campaign on wheels, arrived in the city on Saturday.Students queued up at the North Coimbatore Railway Station to learn about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) through campaign materials displayed in the train. Pamphlets on what caused the disease, its impact on individuals, families and the nation and the ways to prevent it were distributed. Minister for Rural Industries and Animal Husbandry Pongalur N. Palanisamy inaugurated the exhibition. He and Mayor R. Venkatachalam used the voice response system to listen to AIDS awareness messages. Coimbatore Collector V. Palanikumar was present.
Red Ribbon Express is an initiative of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, National AIDS Control Organisation, Nehru Yuva Kendran, the Union Ministry of Railways and the United Nations Children’s Fund. Flagged off from New Delhi on December 1, 2007, it will cover 180 major stops in a year-long campaign over 9,000 km across the country. Covering 50,000 villages also in the process, this will be the biggest AIDS awareness campaign of the world, according to its organisers. As for the villages, volunteers will alight at the major stations and cycle to the rural areas for the campaign.
The Tamil Nadu AIDS Control Society said on Saturday that the express would be here till Sunday. Two buses left for villages in Vadavalli, Kalanaickenpalayam, Thadagam, Thudialur, Podanur, Vellalore, Chettipalayam and Kinathukadavu on Saturday. On Sunday, the buses would go to Periyanaickenpalayam, Karamadai, Mettupalayam, Sirumugai, Kovilpalayam, Bolarpatti, Udumalpet and Kudimangalam. The train will be in Erode on July 14 and in Salem on July 15.
