Tonight, Georgia Southern University student organizations will come together to bring awareness to students about HIV and AIDS and give students the opportunity to be tested at this year’s World Aids Day event.

“This event is geared toward letting students know their status,” John Keith, committee chair, said.

Each year student organizations at GSU host an event in respect of World Aids Day, which is globally recognized on Dec. 1 of each year.

The event at GSU will take place at 7 p.m. in the Williams Center, and prior to at 6 p.m. there will be free HIV/AIDS testing.

“Of the students that come out each year, about 80 percent of them decide to get tested,” Keith said.

There are 20,574 students at GSU, and 512 have been tested for HIV at GSU’s Health Services so far this semester, according to documentation released by Health Services.

GSU’s Health Services offers campus wide testing every semester and this year’s World Aids Day event is the second opportunity this semester for students to come out and get tested.

The last campus wide testing, which took place on Oct. 10, about 200 students came out to get tested Jasmine James, a peer educator at Career Services, said.

“All of our events we stress knowing your status. We stress being responsible, and being responsible includes knowing your status, using protection, limiting your partners, things like that, or if you don’t limit your partners making sure your partners know their status,” James said.

This year Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., African Student Association, Black Student Nursing Association, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Council for Negro Women, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. and Southern African American Sisterhood are the student organizations that are lending a helping hand as well as resources to put this event together, Keith said.

“We want to be able to promote awareness about the silent killer and want students to know how important it is for them to get tested and know their status,” Kevorey Hartwell, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. said.

There will be free testing, food, information and a performance by Cre8tive Nsights.

Cre8ive Nsights is an acting troupe from Atlanta, and according to the GSU Campus Calendar they will be performing a piece entitled “Beyond Betrayal.”