Through love we can fight HIV/Aids

Danny Craig Harris, a third-year BSC student in Geography and Economics, won first prize for his poster design in the Dean of Students HIV/Aids awareness poster competition.

On winning Harris said, “I was fairly surprised when I was announced the winner. I had many people both close friends and people I don’t know complimenting the poster. When people outside my friendship circle started to give me compliments, it did make me realise that the poster was being noticed.”

Harris’s poster has received a lot of positive feedback and has already been earmarked for the back cover of a Rhodes handbook. The poster will be published widely in local press, across campus and on Student websites to disseminate the message.

Harris went on to say that when he submitted the poster he did think that it was unique but also fairly simple so he did think that Rhodes may like it. But after he had won and went to the prize giving he saw some of the other posters and counted himself lucky because “some of the other posters (some not even in the top 4) were amazing”.

When asked what went through his mind when he created the poster Harris said, “I wanted to show that through love we can fight HIV/Aids. If someone truly loves their partner they should be able to show it by getting tested. So I came up with the ‘crossed arms hug’ idea but I didn't quite know how to capture it.”

“One of my really good friends Dianne Jordan (Photojourn 3 student) played a big part in the final image because she thought up the positioning of our models and the angle of the image (bird’s eye view) so that the message could be conveyed clearly,” he added.

Harris won a framed certificate and R1 000 in cash which he will use to buy his digs something. At the end of next year he will sell what he bought and give the money to charity.

“I would just like so say a very special thanks to my photographer Dianne Jordan, my photoshop expert Justin Harris, the two models Lee Stack and Zola Ndlovu and finally to Beth Vale the HIV/AIDS Advocacy Officer for organising the competition and going far beyond the competition to really promote awareness through the posters,” he concluded.