The Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) will be hosting the 2010 International AIDS Candlelight Memorial – Guyana Vigil tomorrow evening in front of the St. George’s Cathedral.

The International AIDS Candlelight Memorial is a programme of the Global Health Council and was the first public event for AIDS awareness (1983), SASOD said in a statement. It noted that the annual event is a commemoration of all the people who have died from or been affected by the scourge of AIDS.

This year the Memorial will be observed under the theme, “Many Lights for Human Rights.” Its advocacy priorities are to reduce stigma and discrimination; to ensure universal access to prevention, treatment, and care; to increase resources for HIV and AIDS; and to promote greater involvement of affected and infected communities in the HIV response.

According to SASOD, it is hosting its first Guyana Vigil to bring together members of the community, policy makers, health professionals, religious leaders and members of the public “to share messages of hope, to express sentiments in prose, poetry, dance and song, to light candles and to observe a moment of silence for those lives we have lost to AIDS. Please bring a candle to light in their remembrance.”