AGENDA
Safe conduct
After a decade of campaigning for HIV and AIDS awareness, Scottish Aids Monitor (SAM) has produced a new three-year educational strategy to target specific groups of the population who are at risk. lts tenth anniversary,
the Big Bang dance party. sees a change of emphasis in an effort to renew the message for young people who have grown up in a blizzard of Safe Sex slogans.
SAM was the first organisation to take . HIV and AIDS education into gay bars in Edinburgh and Glasgow when gay men were identified as the most at-risk population. Now the new educational strategy will continue to target gay men. but has been widened to include women and people who are already infected with the virus.
‘Over a period of years we tried to move with the virus.‘ says SAM‘s information officer. Paul Trainer. ‘We gave out material to everybody. but we are now looking at the most effective ways of educating those specific target groups. It may sound a bit strange to say we are “targeting” women. who make up 52 per cent ofthe population, but it is because there are specific
marked by the Safer Sex Roadshow and
problems that women have in
negotiating safer sex. Women who are HIV positive present themselves later to clinical services than men do. fora whole variety of reasons.‘
The Big Bang will allow SAM to take the safer sex message into young people‘s own environment. as Trainer points out. As many as l2.0()() people will be at the event and all profits will be divided equally between the Terrence Higgins Trust — which is also marking its tenth anniversary — and Scottish Aids charities.
‘Most of the people coming to The Big Bang will not know of a world without AlDS.’ says Trainer. ‘It is very important that we get information across to them in order to enable them to protect themselves against HIV. It is
about safer sex and safer drug use. We i are not judgemental about what people j do. our imperative is to make sure that i whatever they do. they do it safely.‘
7 (Thom Dibdin)
; The Big Bang is on 27 November at tire SIECC. Glasgow: Details in the clubs
section. To mark World AIDS day and
: ten years of the HIV ('risis. SAM is
' Rooms. George Street. [Edinburgh Wed 1— Sat 4 December:
not a population we have tackled before; with the roadshow we have obviously been to discos and clubs. but we have never done anything quite on this scale before. Potentially it will involve kids from all over Scotland and we will be giving a very broad message
exhibiting some ofthe Names project AIDS memorial quilt at the Assembly
_ Road block
Plans for a massive motorway building programme in the centre of Glasgow will be opposed by a new coalition of environmental groups being launched next week.
Glillll!, which stands for Glasgow - remove, redirect, recover, reclaim - plans to mount a noisy campaign against the motorway proposals which form part of Strathclyde Region’s structure plan. The main objections to extending the urban motorway network are that it will increase pollution from cars and reduce the amount of money available to run Glasgow’s public transport.
‘Motorways are not supported by the public and will not solve the traffic congestion problems,’ according to Gllilll! organiser Ian Bogle. ‘We will be pressing regional councillors to vote to have the motorway plans dropped.’
The region’s structure plan will be reviewed next year offering an opportunity for the motorway extension scheme to be deleted. (EG)
A public meeting to launch Glllllt! on Thursday 25 November will be held at the City llalls, Albion Street at 7.30pm. Details on 041 552 8776.
_ Video pause
Civil liberty campaigners have managed to delay the installation of closed-circuit security cameras in Glasgow intended to reduce city centre crime.
The Citywatch scheme was due to be launched lastmonth but has now been shelved until February to allow councillors time to consider the civil liberty concerns the idea has provoked.
‘ln principle. [we do] not believe that people should be observed by an institution of the state going about their everyday business.‘ the Scottish Council for Civil Liberties said in a recent statement. ‘By adopting technological “solutions” public confidence may be appeased but more needs to be done by the Government to tackle crirne.‘
SCCL is particularly concerned about the possible abuses of a library of electronic images which could be built using the Citywatch system. It also wants clear guidelines on access by defence solicitors to evidence gathered on camera. Councillors at Strathclyde Region have held up a contribution to the £1 million cost of the scheme to consider these concerns. but Citywatch says it is confident the cameras will be installed in February. Citywatch is similar to a security camera scheme which has been piloted in Airdrie. (EG) S C C L can be eon tacted on 041 332
5960. g________
_ Watch out
They haven’t burnt down any holiday cottages but Scottish Watch, which was formed to oppose ‘white settlers’
immigrating from England, is fast
becoming the organisation everyone
5 loves to hate.
! For the first time the Scottish
i llational Party will formally discuss
i the issue atafull council meeting
f next month at which Scottish Watch is 5 expected to become a proscribed ; organisation on the grounds that its i anti-English views are racist. This i means that any SllP member found to i be involved with Scottish Watch could be thrown out of the party. The move comes after indications
that Scottish Watch was targeting SllP
. levels of the party but was unable, or ; unwilling, to name names.
absolutely clear.’
danger that nationalists frustrated
members as likely converts to its brand of anti-English politics. According to SllP deputy leader Dr Allan Macartney, Scottish Watch claimed to have membership at all
‘I honestly think it’s a small group of people with a lot of publicity,’ Macartney says. ‘Party members know when an organisation is incompatible and we’ve made our position
llowever SllP takes seriously the
with the lack of success in securing more independence from English rule could be sucked into a more extreme, anti-English stance. Scottish Watch, which appears to be particularly active in the Dumfries and Galloway, basically argues that homelessness and unemployment are made worse by
large numbers of English people living in Scotland.
‘Some people who are less politically sophisticated could produce the wrong solutions for problems which should be blamed on the government,’ Macartney says.
The Saltire Society, which aims to ‘ioster and enrich’ Scotland’s cultural heritage, has also moved to distance itself from Scottish Watch. Two leading Scottish Watch members, lain Sutherland and Robert llunlop, were expected to be expelled from the society last week but resigned shortly before the meeting. ‘The Saltire Society has no party-political or sectarian affiliation and its membership is open to anyone who accepts its objectives,’ according to a statement.
(Eddie Gibb)
: 9 Colour . monitor
F Black issues are under-represented in
the Scottish media because so few
l black people work in the industry.
! according to the Edinburgh-based
. Black European Media Project which
was formed to tackle the problem. BEMP is trying to improve media
j access and has put together a
. programme of events which it hopes
-I will help generate awareness of
f discrimination in the industry. Over 150
; black schoolchildren went to a special
: day of film screenings and discussion
3 last week. which according to BEMP
co-ordinator Dharrnendra Kanani has
; provoked a flood of inquiries on media
1 careers.
Research by BEMP shows that young black people are often discouraged by careers advisors from pursuing a media career because ‘their faces don‘t fit or they've got the wrong accent'. ‘We
don‘t have a black infrastructure in Scotland so there are no representations young people can identify with.‘ Kanani says.
The main public event this weekend features a debate chaired by cultural studies guru Professor Stuart Hall who will consider the place of black people in Europe. There are is also a series of film screenings including Bhajhi on the Beach. the feature debut by Gun'nder Chadha about a group of Asian women on a day trip to Blackpool.
BEMP aims to build on the awareness raised by the November events with an industry conference next year which will consider forms of ‘positive action‘. such as that operated by the BBC in England, which would increase the number of black people working in the Scottish media. (EG)
Stuart Hall speaks at BBC Scotland. Queen Street. Edinburgh on Saturday 20 November at 1.30pm. Details front BEMP 453 I538.
4 The List l9 November—2 December 1993