Academic clubs associated with Cal State Long Beach’s College of Liberal Arts promoted their college’s departments on Thursday by selling bracelets and giving out tattoos.
About 10 booths were set up on the grass area in front of the University Bookstore from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Human Development Student Association used the fair to promote awareness for the humanitarian crisis regarding the spread of AIDS in Africa.
The Human Development Club had a billboard up that showed screenshots from the film “Angles in the Dust,” which focuses on a family in South Africa that runs an orphanage for children who have lost their parents to AIDS. The club showed the film in the University Student Union on May 1.
The club was also selling Ubuntu bracelets, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to help orphaned children in South Africa. The effort was in the spirit of Lance Armstrong’s Live Strong bracelet campaign for cancer, said John Fay, president of the Human Development Club.
The word Ubuntu comes from the African Xhosa word meaning “humanity toward others.”
“You think about what you grow up knowing, and you should feel that you should do something about it to make some kind of change,” Fay said.
The College of Liberal Arts Student Council organized the fair to try to recruit students to their college, said Taylor Jerri, council president.
Funding for the event came from Associated Students, Inc., and totaled about $2,000.