CFSI’s Park Avenue Initiative (PAI) marked 2013 World AIDS Day on December 1 with a three-day Sports Fest and Family Fun Fair in Pasay City, Metro Manila, themed “Getting to Zero: Zero New HIV infections; Zero AIDS-Related Deaths; and Zero Discrimination”.

The event, which involved more than 150 participants and ran from November 25-27 and 29, was aimed at providing opportunities for families to bond and to enhance relationships between parents and children through structured learning activities; to raise awareness of the information, testing and treatment services available in Pasay City; to distribute informational material and condoms to promote safe-sex practices; and to involve such key stakeholders as barangays and schools in drawing attention to the issue of HIV/AIDS. Activities included basketball, darts, chess, table tennis and badminton.

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS Country Representative Teresita Marie “Bai” Bagasao, who delivered a speech at the event, said she was pleased to see World AIDS Day celebrated at the community level, noting that the Philippines was one of the few countries in the world experiencing an increase in reported HIV/AIDS cases.

Marie Pierre Parlade, a nurse at the Pasay City Social Hygiene Clinic, said there had been 356 reported cases locally from 1984 to the present, of which 247 infections resulted from sexual contact. More than 90 percent of all reported cases were males, 30 percent were aged from 15-24, and 48 percent were aged from 25-34.