Name: Deanna Duxbury
Faculty/Year: Arts U3 Committee Position: Director of Media What is your experience with the HIV/AIDS community? What about this cause touches you and makes you want to create change? Last year, my position as Director of Community Engagement really allowed me to experience ACCM and learn more about the HIV/AIDS community in Montreal. I spoke with volunteers and engaged in an intense interview with an individual that lives with HIV. There is so much stigma and injustice surrounding HIV/AIDS purely due to a lack of education and ignorance. Medicine has advanced so far and yet so many people are still ostracised and devalued because of an unfounded fear. It’s more than just contributing to the funding to find a cure for HIV/AIDS, this cause is important to me because ACCM contributes to aiding those that live with HIV/AIDS everyday. I hope that in supporting ACCM and spreading awareness, P[h]assion creates more inclusive and compassionate environment on and off campus. Do you believe fashion has the power to affect positive change? Where do you believe fashion succeeds or fails to create real, tangible social action? The important thing to understand about the influence of fashion is that it is founded through individuals. Fashion is the designers, the influencers, the editors and the shoppers. It moves through real people that have the power to direct awareness, allocate funds, spread truth and gather masses. That power should never be underestimated, but it must be understood that it derives not from a piece of clothing but from an intention and will. The power to make change in society is a human power at heart, and fashion is a vehicle that can drive it. How have social initiates made an impact on your life, or someone close to you? It may be through the HIV/AIDS community or another social/personal issue. Social initiatives have, in many ways, changed my perspective on life. I have a passion for literacy, and support Indigo's “Love of Reading” fund that helps build up libraries for local schools. I’ve worked on the ECOuture Fashion Show to help promote environmentally friendly fashion. I volunteer with the Book Fair that gives every penny to Student Aid at McGill. I’ve made a point to donate to women’s shelters wherever I live and am an active advocate for global women’s rights. Of course, everyone participates in these kinds of things. We’re surrounded by them and drawn to them, in university. What I admire most is actually Hannah Taylor’s “Ladybug Foundation”. It was founded when she was only eight because of a moment of compassion for the homeless. It takes real initiative to carve out a place for social justice in the world and inspire others to build on that desire to make change. In the future, I hope my desire to influence social change can make even a fraction of that impact. I want to do more than contribute. I want to be a force that calls out to others and hopefully then we, as a community, can manifest real action.
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December 2017
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