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The Citizen, 1996-11-20, Page 4Photo by Les Cook Letters THE EDITOR, Recently a few students and myself have started an AIDS Awareness Group at Central Huron Secondary School. This is a group that will try to help educate students, parents and teachers about the AIDS virus and the things that you can do to prevent AIDS from happening to you. We are NOT a group who is here to promote sexual activities, but abstinence, although some may think the opposite. On Friday, Nov.l, Lee Ann Riley and I spent our lunch hour putting up a display case in front of the office. On Monday, Nov. 4, the display was down! Why? Because there were condoms in the display. Condoms...we've all seen them, we all know what they are used for! So what is the problem? Condoms help to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy. Our group is stressing the dangers of the sexually transmitted disease called AIDS! In NO WAY am I saying go out and have sex! I would be happy if the entire student body of Central Huron would refrain from having sex! But that is NOT going to happen, and the issue is NOT going to disappear. We all have to face the problem, and work on it together. The disease is here. It's in Huron County, and maybe even in our sch661s. I'm just trying to help STOP THE SPREAD! I think that it is about time that some people start to open their eyes, and realize the dangers that students, families and maybe even themselves are facing. They need to see why we are having a group such as this in the school. Because we care! We need to take a look at what is happening in the world, in this community. People are dying from a preventable disease, and if you think that it cannot happen to you, then you are wrong. I would like to thank the THE EDITOR, We at the Huron County HIV/AIDS Network would like to extend our full support to Courtney Sauve in her recent struggle at CHSS. She has become a valued member of our team here. We encourage her effort to raise AIDS Awareness in her school. We stand with Courtney in promoting abstinence as the safest and best guard against potentially devastating consequences. But unlike a select few at Central THE EDITOR, We are sending a big thanks to our participants in the Brussels Public School Halloween UNICEF program. We reached $140.05 in students, teachers and parents who are supporting my ideas, opinions and actions. I'm sorry for those of you wilo don't agree with what I am doing. All that I am doing is trying to save lives, your lives. I just care about the student body and the teachers here at Central Huron. I don't want to see AIDS happen to any of you, and I'm NOT going to give up the fight! So fight with me, not against me! Grade 12 Student Courtney Sauve. Huron, we with Courtney will not close our eyes to the reality of the situation. We cannot pretend that if the problem is not visible, it is not there. If even one student chooses to participate in life altering activities, should we not take every possible precaution to guard against that choice becoming a life ending one? The Huron County HIV/AIDS Network Board Trish Ryan, Secretary. collection. That is an excellent goal and the community support is very much appreciated. Thanks again! Sincerely, Courtney Sallows and Nicole Mastnak. Student hopes to stop the spread Network supports effort BPS says thanks for support C The North Huron Cp itizen eA P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. NOM 1H0 Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont. NOG 1H0 Phone 887-9114 FAX 887-9021 Publisher, Keith Roulston cchiA Editor, Bonnie Gropp Advertising Manager, Jeannette McNeil The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable In advance at a rate of $27.00/year ($25.24 $1.76 G.S.T.) In Canada; $62.00/year in U.S.A. and $75.00/year In other foreign countries. Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited. Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 4 p.m. - Blyth. We are not responsible for unsolicited newscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are Copyright. Publications Mail Registration No. 6968 vElmcmo CMCULATION PAID PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1996 A one-way dialogue Nobody can blame the volunteers on the Huron Perth District Health Council's Hospital and Related Health Services Study Task Force for not wanting to subject themselves to the wrath of their neighbours as happened in Grey-Bruce, but the word that the members will not attend any public meetings on the hospital situation is disturbing. That, apparently, is the policy the committee has adopted, as announced at a recent meeting in Blyth sponsored by Clinton Public Hospital. When members of a similar committee in Grey-Bruce came up with their initial proposal, they were attacked in a series of public meetings attended by an estimated 15,000 people. There will be no such meetings in Huron and Perth. Once the committee has come up with a list of possible options to cut about 20 per cent from the current hospital budget for the two counties, there will be a series of workshops to inform people of what they are. These are not give and take opportunities. They are a one-way dialogue. The committee is not working in a vacuum. A survey of 300 residents was taken. People were given a telephone number to call to leave their opinions on tape. Focus groups were set up to deal with various aspects of health care. Health care professionals were recruited to give input. Since the task force has only six months to deliver a plan to change the face of health care in Huron-Perth, the lack of the public's ability to respond to mistakes is more serious. The system leaves the ordinary citizen, the person who will have to live with the results of the decisions made by this committee, feeling helpless to have any control over their own future. This is a deliberate move from the highest levels, of course. The unelected committee reports to the unelected District Health Council which in turn reports to the unelected Hospital Restructuring Commission, set up under the Harris government's Bill 26 which gives the government more power to change the face of Ontario than any government since the days of the family compact.. The system seems invented by people who really don't trust democracy and are afraid to let people have their say about their future. It's a stupid system and people must find a way to break through the barriers that have been set up so that their voices can be heard. — KR A wave of humanity The picture of hundreds of thousands of people, carrying all they own on their heads, streaming from refugee camps in Zaire across the border to Rwanda is one that makes all our apparent troubles in Canada seems small by comparison. These people are moving towards an uncertain future. They left Rwanda after their fellow Hutu tribesmen butchered hundreds of thousands of their Tutsi neighbours. When the Tutsi rebels seized power, these people feared vengeance and they fled across the border where they have lived in terrible conditions, made worse by a rebellion in Zaire as well. They had been told by Hutu militants, that if they went home they would be slaughtered. Finally, shortly after it was announced that Canada would lead a mission to bring food to the starving people in the refugee camps, the Hutu leaders suddenly fled deeper into Zaire. Faced with the fearful alternatives to heading back to the unknown or starving where they were, these people began to move. Some of these people are innocent of blame in the atrocities but they can't be sure Rwandan authorities will be able to separate the guilty from the innocent. In Canada, we can't even imagine the terrible options these people face. But some people, notably the Reform Party, are busy saying the Canadian government is unnecessarily putting our troops in harm's way. The scope of the Canadian-led mission may not need to be as large as was originally intended now that the refugees are heading home but the international community shouldn't be ready to wash its hands of the situation until it is sure we can't help improve the lot of these desperate people. Canadians can be proud that their prime minister, a man who all too often has been afraid of making waves, was compassionate enough, and dedicated enough, to fight to bring this international rescue mission together. It's the kind of leadership we'd like to see more often. It's the kind of compassion we should sec more often. — KR E ditorial