Viki Vasuki Supramany and Esther Foo at the entrance of the exhibition

Today alone, more than 6,000 children will be orphaned because they have either lost one or both of their parents to HIV and AIDS. On December 1, 2007, World Vision, in collaboration with the Singapore Health Promotion Board, sought to raise public awareness of the AIDS pandemic and get the word out on HIV/AIDS in a big way with the launch of the One Life project. 

The One Life Experience (OLE) is a 150 square meter interactive exhibition focuses on the devastating effect of AIDS on families in Singapore, Cambodia and Africa.  It allows the visitor to intimately “walk in” the shoes of a child whose young life has been affected by AIDS. The Experience ran throughout December and January and Viki and I, both from the Hercules Singapore office, were excited to use our "One Day Away" to volunteer for this project. 

We helped with the day-to-day running of the exhibition and were assigned different operational duties like inviting passers-by to the exhibition, issuing audio-visual headsets, assisting visitors to complete before and after surveys, and listening to visitor’s reflections after their walk-through. 

Visitors and volunteers alike left the experience (some with tears in their eyes) with a better understanding of the impact HIV and AIDS have in the lives of people around the world. Although emotionally and physically tiring, it was a full day well spent.