THAILAND: UNITED STATES MOVIE STAR ASHLEY JUDD AND ASIAN SINGER COCO LEE VISIT AIDS PATIENTS IN BUDDHIST HOSPICE

Record ID: 337911

  • Title: THAILAND: UNITED STATES MOVIE STAR ASHLEY JUDD AND ASIAN SINGER COCO LEE VISIT AIDS PATIENTS IN BUDDHIST HOSPICE
  • Date: 13th July 2004
  • Summary: (EU) LOPBURI, THAILAND (JULY 11, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. TS ACTRESS ASHLEY JUDD WALKING THROUGH AIDS VILLAGE WITH TEMPLE WORKER FATHER MICHAEL; SCU POLICEMAN 0.14 2. MV MUMMIFIED BODY OF FORMER AIDS PATIENT IN TEMPLE MUSEUM; SCU JUDD LOOKING ON 0.22 3. WIDE OF AIDS WARD; MV JUDD AND FATHER MICHAEL TALKING WITH AIDS PATIENT IN BED; CLOSE OF JUDD HOLDING PATIENT'S HAND / TILT TO WIDE OF JUDD; MEDIA 0.51 4. SCU FATHER MICHAEL AND JUDD TALKING TO ANOTHER PATIENT; MV MEDIA; MV PRESS FILMING JUDD AS SHE HUGS AIDS PATIENT (6 SHOTS) 1.22 5. (SOUNDBITE) (English) JUDD SAYING: "Programmes like this one here at the temple are relatively inexpensive to run and if the private sector would engage and donate money not only could the quality of life be increased for those already living with HIV/AIDS, but thousands upon thousands of new infections could be prevented." 1.44 6. MEDIA 1.49 7. (SOUNDBITE) (English) SINGER COCO LEE SAYING: "We may not be able to save the people here today but knowing that we gave them a brief moment of happiness because we care and I wish more people could be like us and really care for them." 2.08 8. SLV JUDD MEDITATING; MV MONK MEDITATING; JUDD AND LEE PRAYING; SCU BUDDHA IMAGE; JUDD MEDITATING WITH AIDS PATIENTS (7 SHOTS) 2.44 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 28th July 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LOPBURI, THAILAND
  • Country: Thailand
  • Reuters ID: LVA9NK1SPQGM74LONIORYOBA10E1
  • Story Text: U.S. movie star Ashley Judd and Asian singer Coco
    Lee have visited Thai AIDS patients in a Buddhist hospice
    as part of an AIDS awareness tour.

    U.S. movie star Ashley Judd and Asian singer Coco Lee
    visited Thai AIDS patients on Sunday (July 11, 2004), as part
    of a week-long AIDS awareness tour in the southeast Asian
    country.

    Tucked in lush rural hills, Thailand's "AIDS temple" is
    the country's largest Buddhist hospice, and aims to shock
    visitors out of complacency with a macabre display of
    withered corpses and bones of the rejected dead.

    The star of "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood",
    like scores of visitors who troop through the temple
    grounds each day, was first taken to see the
    formaldehyde-preserved corpses of former patients who
    donated their bodies to the temple's "Life Museum".

    Judd was visibly moved as she later toured the
    hospice's "dying wards" -- where thousands have come to
    die, shunned by family too fearful or too poor to care.

    Mainly Buddhist Thailand is hailed as a success story
    in the global fight against AIDS, after a widespread
    campaign to promote condoms in the 1990s.

    But activists say the campaign has generated little
    sympathy for the 700,000 Thais living with the disease.

    Judd made an impassioned plea to Thais, asking them to
    fight the social stigma connected with the disease.

    "Programmes like this one here at the temple are
    relatively inexpensive to run and if the private sector
    would engage and donate money not only could the quality of
    life be increased for those already living with HIV/AIDS,
    but thousands upon thousands of new infections could be
    prevented," she said.

    Coco Lee was unable to hold back the tears as she gave
    a speech calling for compassion after her tour of the
    hospice.

    "We may not be able to save the people here today but
    knowing that we gave them a brief moment of happiness
    because we care and wish more people could be like us and
    really care for them," she said.

    Lee and Judd will spend a week visiting local clinics
    and schools to speak with children about the threat of
    contracting HIV, as ambassadors for HIV awareness charity
    Youth AIDS.

    Their visit is timed to coincide with this week's
    international AIDS conference being hosted in Bangkok.

    Youth AIDS funds a series of HIV prevention programmes
    in the country, including the marketing of its own brand of
    condom aimed at teens.


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