File picture of AIDS Campaign

Nov. 30: Don?t be surprised if you find slum children counselling grownups on AIDS in the city streets tomorrow.

This innovative campaign will be a part of an NGO?s (World Vision) efforts to spread awareness about the disease on the occasion of World AIDS Day.

Manager of World Vision?s Guwahati street children project, Gamliel Sherio, said 40 slum children would set out in two trucks with a mission to spread awareness about AIDS among people across the city.?

?The children of our project, carrying leaflets and banners, will talk to people in the streets and public places and explain to them what is AIDS all about and its dangerous effects. The places where the trucks will stop are bus stands, railway station, public parks, colleges and highways,? he said.

?The children who will take part in tomorrow?s campaign have the basic knowledge on the topic as they have undergone a month-long workshop on AIDS awareness organised by the state AIDS Prevention Society,? he added.

Both trucks will start from Bamunimaidam and pass through GNB Road, GS Road, Zoo Road and Guwahati bypass of East-West Corridor, covering Maligaon, Beltola, Khanapara, Ulubari, Six Mile, Pathar Quarry, Narengi, among other areas of the city, before returning to Bamunimaidam.

Sherio said the objective behind involving street children in the campaign was to create awareness among the street dwellers and also to boost their morale.

World Vision, through its Guwahati street children project, is engaged in working with the underprivileged children in the city for the past eight years and is actively involved in spreading AIDS awareness.

The state government and the Northeast Frontier Railway, among various other organisations, will also observe World AIDS Day.

The government will take out a cultural procession and hold a public meeting at the Assam State Textbook Production and Publication Corporation playground at Panbazar.

The NF Railway will organise a car rally, which will be flagged off from the central hospital at Maligaon.