AIDS awareness activists are revitalising their campaign to "educate and enlighten'' young people about the dangers of contracting the disease.

With the Allan Vincent Smith Foundation currently undergoing an overhaul of key personnel, positions including the presidency and two directorships have been or soon will be filled by fresh faces.

In a letter to the Board of Directors, current President Joe Gibbons announced the resignation of "two valuable members who have served on the Board since our inception'' and conceded that "it is time to make way for new members''.

He stated that, while "their commitment to the objectives of the Foundation remains unchanged. ..great public awareness, community involvement and close networking with other related organisations are high on our agenda''.

Mr. Gibbons said his successor, Elmore Warren "has tremendous experience with Bermuda's diverse community'' and that his "dedication and skills will be valuable to the Foundation''.

Mr. Warren will join Outreach, Event Manager and community coordinator Katherine Dill in the Foundation's new initiative to educate the younger generation about how to prevent contracting HIV and AIDS.

Ms Dill explained to The Royal Gazette what the aims of the organisation had been from the beginning and also what programmes would be implemented in order to take those aims into the new Millennium.

"Ever since the Foundation was started about seven years ago, its mission has been to educate people about the disease.'' She said: "We feel HIV and AIDS could be completely eradicated from our society by informing people on how to prevent contraction of them.'' Ms Dill added that a main goal of the Foundation was to "tackle the misconceptions'' that people have about AIDS.

"We plan to do this with a host of new and existing programmes which will provide people of the younger generation with a steady, reliable source of information'' she said.

One programme that the Foundation is planning to give a breath of new life to is called "Peer Education''.

This scheme calls for students to volunteer to be specially educated about AIDS prevention and then for them to go back into their environment and subtly teach their friends about the importance of safe sex and not sharing needles.

Ms Dill said: "We find that young people are more likely to listen to their friends and peers than to adults feeding them facts and figures.'' "The problems with such a scheme,'' she continued, "are that, firstly, it is not at all easy to gain the consent of parents who shy away from such issues because they don't feel comfortable with them.'' Also a problem is the fact that such a programme requires a lot of funding.

This second reason is one of the factors that causes the Foundation to make direct appeals for financial and practical support from various organisations and individuals.

According to Ms Dill, the Foundation's new directive includes the hope of forming links with related groups and companies so that costs for activities and programmes can be shared out and, thereby, made less of a worry.

Another new idea, right now only in its early stages, is the creation and distribution of a lifestyles magazine called "Vibe''.

Ms Dill said that the Foundation was looking for sponsors who would help shoulder the burden of printing and widely distributing such a publication to all the schools on the Island at no cost to the students.

Editions of "Vibe'' will be produced regularly and will include opinion, fashion, sports and entertainment sections while steadily feeding young Bermudians with essential information about personal responsibility and healthy lifestyles.

The idea is another example of the way the Foundation is hoping to reach and identify with younger people who need to be taught about the very real dangers of contracting the virus.

The plan is to continue injecting information into the community by using "non-traditional methods''.

Foundation President Joe Gibbons said: "We realise that putting adverts in the newspapers doesn't have that much of an effect because young people generally don't read them. Instead we're looking at sending messages with a `soft sell, hard message' approach.'' "This means that instead of having adults come and tell them about the dangers at school we're going to have things like adverts on the radio and messages in the `Al and Crif' television show to provide constant but subtle information,'' he explained.

The Foundation makes efforts, not only to prevent people from contracting the virus, but also to help ease the pain of those who already have it.

This year they again sent five children whose lives are directly affected by AIDS to Camp Heartland in Minnesota which is especially for young people in their position.

Ms Dill said that the experience was "extremely rewarding'' for the children and that this was another reason why the Foundation was so in need of financial support.

"The AIDS epidemic is not improving. In the 1990s people seem less concerned.

As a result more women and children are finding themselves increasingly at risk.'' Ms Dill made an appeal for people to forget any taboos they might have about talking about AIDS and to make an effort to really understand what it is and how you can contract it.

Finally, she said: "The only way we're ever going to beat AIDS/HIV is by knowing exactly how to prevent it and by practising those prevention methods.'' Anti-AIDS crusader: Katherine Dill, from the Allan Vincent Smith Foundation