6 THE VOICE, THURSDAY, MARCH, 2016 EDITOR RUMANA DSOUZA lewpoints Students perceive HIV threat to be quite low IV is no longer a death sen- H tence, which may be why the youth today don’t perceive it as a serious threat. This highlights the need for public awareness cam- paigns. I would bet that most students attending Langara College (myself included) did not know about the Student Health Services department where students can get tested for STIs and HIV. Walking around the college campus, you don’t see many posters advertising such facilities or services; much less warning people about the dangers of ignoring STIs and HIV. Relying on high school sex education and biology classes to educate post-secondary students is a serious risk. Many people attending Langara College come from a variety of cultural and Le. | educational 7 backgrounds OPIN ION where such Daniel Dadi - classes might not Cantari have been anitarino available to them. According to annual reports by the BC Centre for Disease Control, HIV cases have been declining. Does this mean that we can relax and rely on students to find time in their busy schedules to sift through HIV/AIDS info on their own? The answer is no. Post-secondary institutions like Langara College need to step up in terms of keeping awareness alive on campuses. We need more signs, posters and educational seminars warning students of the risk of HIV. There need to be efforts to fill in students on all the health services and facilities available to them, and even if the information is put out there for students to absorb, we need to make sure that it is acces- sible to Langara’s international students. It is up to each and every person to do their own health research, but Langara College could do a better job of informing students and directing them towards health services and facilities that are available. Otherwise students might surmise that the college does not take the health and safety of their students seriously. We want to hear from you Got a different point of view? Write to us. Problems with something we've said? Let us know. Think we got a fact wrong? Tellus. Journalisin instructor Erica Bulman oversees The Voice. Email her at ebulman@langara.be.ca ” pc" psi IT] SEAN LEE comic City loses its fresh blood fter living in many different cities in Canada and the United States, I have come to ealize that Vancouver is the most expen- sive place I’ve had the pleasure to live in. Post-secondary graduates are expected to get jobs and support themselves, but in this city that seems nearly impossible. Students are going into serious debt just to make it through their OPINION Chantelle Deacon education. It’s young people who are going to shape Vancouver’s future. With Vancouver being so unaffordable, there won’t be anyone with a fresh education joining the workforce. This city is the most desired spot to live in Canada, yet the most expensive. I understand why rent is high here but it has surpassed being affordable. For students like myself, who moved to Vancouver for school and have to support themselves, it is impossible to survive here. The problem is that it doesn’t feel like anyone cares that young people who want to live in Vancouver simply cannot afford it. I plan to live in Vancouver after I graduate and hopefully downtown, but that’s no longer looking like a reality. The fact is that the high cost of rent is forcing students to move out of Vancouver, and even out of the Lower Mainland, to find work after they graduate. I guess moving out of Vancouver to find affordable accommodation and paid work is the sacrifice we have to make in this day and age. My monthly expenses are so high that student loans don’t even remotely cover my bills. But here I am, a 23-year-old planning to make this beautiful city my home, just barely scraping by. Wheel world burlesque inspires become a seat of power and mastery. Women participating in Real- wheels Theatre’s burlesque cabaret have no intention of letting a disability define who they are and what they can do. Most misper- ceptions about disability and sex can bar people with disabilities from exploring their sexuality — the biggest misconception being that to live with a disability is to live without sexuality. Able-bodied people often don’t F:: some, the wheelchair has OPINION Rumana Dsouza realize that men and women with disabilities 66 experience the Most same desire for . pleasure, loveand lspercep- physical connec- tions about tion as the rest of ° ° ns. disabilty Thisiswidely and sex accepted in the can bar media — rarely 1 are people with people disabilities with di- portrayed in WH relationships or abilities even as having from ex- sexual partners. lorin Even the body P . g positivity their sexu- movement, which ality protests unrealis- tic body expectations in the media, fails to account for those with disabilities. In this sense, the body we're told to love and feel positive about is always the able body. The body positivity movement needs to be more than just a conversation about waistlines. It should be about looking past physical and functional differences to let people exist as they are, without fear and complaint. In this way, Realwheels’ campaign to target the misrepresentation of disabilities in popular culture and create a safe space for disabled people in theatre around sexuality is an important one. We need to promote the idea of seeing the positive side of disability, particularly when it comes to sexuality. Fil fay ce) The Voice is published by Langara College's journalism department. Editorial opinions are those of the staff and are independent of views of the student government and administration. We welcome letters to the editor. They may be edited for brevity. Your letter must include your name and phone number. HOW TO REACH US PHONE 604-323-5396 E-MAIL thevoice@langara.bc.ca DROP-IN Room A226 Langara College SNAIL MAIL The Voice 100 West 49th Ave. Vancouver, B.C. V5Y 226 WEBSITE wwwiangaravoice.ca EDITORIAL STAFF MANAGING EDITOR Rosemary Newton PAGE EDITORS PAGE 1 Kate Richardson PAGE 2 Serena Pattar PAGE 3 Ben Bengtson PAGE 4 Jake Costello PAGE 5 Tessa Vikander PAGE 6 Rumana Dsouza PAGE 7 Murray B. Hunt PAGE 8 Scott Drake MANAGING WEB EDITOR Bridgette Watson WEB EDITORS Seyedmostafa Raziei Kevin Underhill Kathryn Wu Nancy Plechaty Sean Lee Mark Stuart COPY/WEB EDITOR Vincent Matak REPORTERS Daniel Dadi-Cantarino Chantelle Deacon Reuben Dongalen JR. Natalie Dunsmuir Scott Forbes Simran Gill Jason Hamilton Nico Hemandez Brian Kurokawa Alyd Llewellyn Jordan Macdonald Veronnica Mackillop Chahira Merarsi Luis Mina Linda Nguyen Alison Pudsey Ashley Singh Roberto Teixeira Anna Tilley Jenna Tytgat Chandler Walter Jake Wray Contact us: Online at langaravoice.ca Twitter: @LangaraVoice