SYDNEY CANDLELIGHT MEMORIAL - SUNDAY 20 MAY 2012

A news item in the Star Observer of 27 April 2012 states that the annual Sydney Candlelight Memorial for people who have died from AIDS will take place on Sudnay 20 May 2012 to coincide with International Candlelight Memorial Day.

The announcement goes on to state that the memorial will be held at Slide bar, 41 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst.

What is so extraordinary about this announcement is that there is in existence a ready made venue for such events to take place. The venue is called the Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves (SPAIDS) and is an ideal area for holding such commemorative events.

In past years SPAIDS has contacted the organisers of such events and suggested they hold the event at Sydney Park, but we have never even had the courtesy of a response.

The same story applies to the World AIDS Day Events held around 1 December each year. One event is a fund raiser and people are invited to do walks in the Sydney Botanical Gardens. Sydney Park is a fantastic venue for such events, but SPAIDS has been met by stony silences from the organisers.

It is interesting to know that people who come to SPAIDS on tree planting days, once a year on National Tree Day at the end of July each year are people who would attend some of these other events at these other venues.

SPAIDS realised a long time ago that the Sydney AIDS organisations are not interested in dealing with activists who aren't in the AIDS political mainstream, but it is their loss, and we are pleased to know that some groups, such as IDAHO and the Sydney Beat Project have felt that SPAIDS is a wonderful venue to hold events and also has the attribute of being conveniently situated in inner Sydney and easily accessible by all forms of transport. Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves (SPAIDS)

SPAIDS AND CANDLELIGHT

Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves - SPAIDS - had its first planting on 15 May 1994 to remember people who had died from AIDS. At that stage, before drug therapies had improved to the stage where people with HIV can now expect a normal life expectancy, the numbers dying horrible deaths from a dreadful disease were so great that we saw the planting of trees as a step in the healing process of loss and sadness.

Other events commemorating people who had died of AIDS were the Australian Quilt Project and the Candlelight Memorial.

As time passed and SPAIDS continued to grow and become established as an AIDS memorial, we anticipated that, with the establishment of a Reflection Area as the centrepoint of the Groves, memorial services would be able to be held in Sydney Park.

We now find that events on World AIDS Day, 1 December annually, and Candlelight, also an annual event, usually held later in the year but this year to be held on 15 May (the anniversary of SPAIDS origins) are held elsewhere, notably the Sydney Botanic Gardens for World AIDS Day, and now Candlelight, held at a private venue in Oxford Street Darlinghurst.

We are at a loss to understand how these organisations organising such commemorative events fail to understand the historic and educational relationship to the SPAIDS project. Sydney Park is used by hundreds of people weekly, and the Park is in a sufficiently accessible area by public transport or by car so that there is no difficulty in finding the venue, yet they continue to disregard SPAIDS.

This is really their loss as the AIDS Groves continue to become more beautiful every year, and particularly in 2011, after Sydney has experienced record rainfalls.