An annual campaign to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS is looking to double its impact on the community in its third year.
Leading up to AIDS Awareness Week on November 24 to December 1, community volunteers will be collecting scarves for the The Red Scarf Project.
Project volunteers will be creating art installations in downtown London, Woodstock, and Stratford using donated red scarves. When tied to an object, the scarves look like the red ribbon of HIV/AIDS awareness.
Oxford County Public Health nurse Gayle Milne says initiatives like these are important for HIV/AIDS awareness due to ongoing misconceptions.
"I think a lot of people don't even really think about it. I don't think that it's particularly visible. So sometimes people may have that sense that perhaps HIV is not an issue in Ontario... however we know that it is," she says. "There are still a lot of HIV myths out there about how it's transmitted, who could be infected, those kind of things [that] we are still dealing with."
The Red Scarf Project is looking to double last year's numbers by collecting at least 1,000 scarves.
For more information on the HIV/AIDs awareness campaign, or how to donate a red scarf, visit Regional HIV/AIDS Connection's website HERE.