Katharine Mehta Feburary 5th 2010 Aid For Aids 1

Dear Blog,

Today I went to Aid For Aids with my group: Alma, Lenny, Adam, Olivia and  Jasper, Sarah tagged along this time to say hi to her friend Eduardo. Eduardo is her Mom’s helper for her Aids Clinic in Nigeria, I think. We took the train down to a big building on Wall Street. We took the elevator up to the 22nd floor.  The elevator doors opened and we were greeted by a woman with a nose ring who brought us in to an office. She then explained what their mission was at Aid for AIDS was.  She explained how Aid for AIDS tried to get condoms and AIDS information to people who need it some of these places include: Venezuela, South Africa, and South Asia. Aid for AIDS also gives medication to people who need it and can not afford it. These people are usually from the listed places above, They just sign up for a program where they can get the medication. She gave us a tour of the office, she showed us the place where they empty pill bottles to repackage the other pills in to new bottles. She also showed us a closet which was filled with wheel chairs and crutches. I asked why it was filled with these items, because it did not make sense to me why they would have wheel chairs and crutches at an Aid for AIDS office. She said they where to donate to Haiti. I didn’t get why this related to AIDS but it is still important.  I started thinking about the medication and how they got it, I decided to ask the lady why it was there. She said that it was part of the Medicine Recycling Program you can check out the link here: http://www.aidforaids.org/index.php/site/programs_services/category/recycling/.  This program was one where medication was being recycled from other people which they did not use.  She then gave us our jobs:  Lenny,Matan and I where put on pamphlet folding duty, while Olivia, Jasper and Adam where put on some other job.  The pamphlets held facts about AIDS and HIV. I learned that AIDS can be transferred through oral sex though there is a very low risk. I really learned a lot from this visit.  I really learned a lot about my people skills and how to improve them, I started to ask questions and help out with little things that I thought would not help, but they did.  Next time I go I want to find out how the organization gets their funding because it seemed like a lot of money would go in to the upkeep and day to day operations of a foundation like this.