December will be upon us before we know it, and I want to tell you tell you about an idea we actually came up with at Action Through Advocacy which I'm hoping lots of officers out there will be up for getting on board with to help us make successful.

The NUS welfare campaign has declared the week of 28th November- 2nd December 2005 National Student SHAG (Sexual Health Awareness & Guidance) Week. From liaising with welfare officers from across the country it seems many decided to run their annual SHAG/Sexual Health campaigns around this time in order to coincide with World AIDS Day (Thursday 1st December), and so we are aiming to coordinate the fantastic and innovative work students unions across the country are undertaking, and want to make this a really high profile campaign.

We know that rates of sexually transmitted diseases are at their highest amongst 16-25 year olds and that 1 in 10 students has Chlamydia; that’s potentially over half a million of our membership! By holding a national week of campaigning, we can begin trying to change this.

The welfare campaign is currently working with Interact Worldwide, who campaign on global sexual and reproductive rights on this campaign. The theme of World AIDS day this year is promises. Interact have produced postcards on which we are asking students to write their own pledges/promises on sexual rights. We will then submit them to the government in order to demand they keep the promises that they have made over sexual health and AIDS treatments in the developing world. The union that completes and returns the most post cards will win 5000 free condoms for their campaign.

In addition, together we are putting a sexual health promotional pack together, full of information, ideas and resources. This will be an online resource, downloadable from officeronline in the coming weeks. This includes an A-Z of campaigning ideas and this is where we want your help! We want ideas and examples of ‘best practice’ in terms of sexual health/ World AIDS Day campaigns your union has run in the past and has planned for this year. We want you to hear about events you have run, from ‘condomolympics’ to scarlet balls. Please get in touch, tell us about what you’ve done, and send copies of campaign materials you have produced and photos of your campaigns in action so we can share them with your counterparts across the country. Send your materials by post to the address below or by e-mail to Veronica.King@nus.org.uk We are all striving for the same things-by sharing our ideas and working in the spirit of collectivism we can all benefit.

National SHAG week is just one part of the sexual health campaign NUS will be running this year. For more information, visit officeronline where details will shortly be up. This date may seem a long way off at present but the time to start planning for it is now. By its nature it is ‘sexy’, by getting involved you can help us make it successful.

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