here! Networks Launches Virtual AIDS Quilt

here! Networks, home of the gothic gay soap "Dante's Cove" and other cool programming, also has some serious real-life issues to promote in the weeks leading up to World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. The pay television network has announced the creation of the Internet’s first Virtual AIDS Quilt, which will pay tribute to the many lives that have been lost to AIDS and will be unveiled on World AIDS Day.

“After 25 years, the AIDS epidemic has become a global concern,� says Paul Colichman, here!’s Founder and CEO. “HIV/AIDS has become a killer that does not discriminate based on race, creed or sexual orientation, and the Virtual AIDS Quilt will celebrate the lives of all of those who have been taken from us while helping to promote HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention efforts around the globe.�

Online users will be able to create a quilt by unloading photos and sharing stories of those taken by AIDS as part of 25th anniversary of the discovery of this terrible disease that for so many years devastated the gay community and remains a public health emergency in many communities in the U.S.where 40,000 new HIV infections occur each year--more than half in people under 25 years old. .
 
Upload your photo and story by visiting one of the here! Interactive Media sites at: www.heretv.com , www.gaywired.com , www.247gay.com  or www.lesbination.com .  Visitors will be sent a copy of their submission and will be able to see their remembrance published when the Virtual Quilt is fully unveiled in December.