In honor of World AIDS Day, SMART Youth participated in
several really great events throughout the first week of December to raise
awareness and spread the word about prevention and condom usage! We kicked off
the week with Cafecito at the East Harlem Café. Sam Kirk, a multidiscipline artist, displayed her
artwork and gave a talk about pieces she created especially for SMART. On
Tuesday, we worked with Sam to create a wonderful community art project started
by SMART Youth and SMART women and completed by the community on Thursday at Viva
El Barrio! The finished artwork looked amazing and was a powerful piece
conveying what community means to each of the individual artists. It truly was
a collaborative effort!
SMART Youth was all over the City collaborating with NYIT
(New York Institute of Technology) and NYU (New York University) facilitating sexual
health workshops and sitting on panels. Everyone was fascinated by the female
condom demonstration and got some specialty condoms!
On Thursday Viva El Barrio!, an annual community event in
honor of World AIDS Week, took place, and SMART Youth was there to spread the
message about sexual health and prevention. We tabled at the event, and
community members were able to come by to “shop” for specialty condoms, learn
about many of SMART’s programs, and see a female condom demonstration in
action. We were able to give away a ton of condoms, and community members
benefited from relevant sexual health information, along with great food and
salsa dancing!
