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An innovative new comic book, 'Are your rights respected?' has been developed by the Gay and Lesbian Archives (GALA), an independent project of the South African History Archives, located at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The comic was developed to help outreach endeavours in the deaf community about HIV/AIDS, sexuality, sexual diversity, rights and empowerment. Illustrated by South African artist Tommy Motswai, who is also deaf, the comic tells the story of a group of friends at a deaf school as they seek to learn about sexual health, and lobby for their right to information. As deaf learners often have lower literacy abilities than their hearing counterparts due to limitations in deaf education, the comic uses images and illustrations of South African Sign Language (SASL) to communicate the storyline.

An exhibition of artwork and storyboard sketches from the comic book will open at 1p.m. on Saturday 2 September, at the Adler Museum of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Witswatersrand, 7 York Rd, Parktown, Johannesburg. Judge Edwin Cameron will be the guest speaker.

For more information and to access copies of the comic book contact: Dr Ruth Morgan, Gay & Lesbian Archives (GALA),
Tel: +27 11 717-4239, Email:

Imagined Futures: student leadership in a time of AIDS, 27-28 September 2006, Pretoria, South Africa. This conference, hosted by the Centre for the Study of AIDS in Pretoria, is aimed at student leaders, peer educators, student volunteers, HIV programme managers, researchers and academics.

The conference hopes to:

• Promote greater debate on HIV and AIDS, challenges facing young people, institutionalising responses to HIV and AIDS in universities, the content of programmes and student leadership between universities in the Southern African Development Community and others.
• Create a platform for students and academics/programme managers to interact with each other on these issues.
• Look at strategies for providing services to HIV-positive students and university staff, and how to engage people living with HIV and AIDS in university programmes.
• Develop a declaration of commitment on student programmes in Southern Africa to be presented and circulated in the region and sector to ensure that the 'voices' of students and practitioners reach policy- and decision-makers.

For more information click on www.csa.za.org or contact: