Christian Heppinstall

I met with Christian about a week ago to talk about India, particularly our visit with Winnie Singh. Christian had emailed her that we were coming and we had a very enjoyable lunch with her and her husband and daughter and another friend of theirs at their home in New Dehli. Christian met Winnie through an AIDS prevention chat room. Christian developed an AIDS education program that used high school students to write a play about AIDS. The students then performed the play at a number of high schools in Anchorage. The play would be followed up with questions and answers about AIDS. Christian is hoping to replicate the program in India. Winnie is the director of a non-profit organization that works to prevent AIDS in India -
Maitri. Maitri means something like 'loving kindness." There are some pictures of our visit to Winnie's in one of the early posts from India.

Christian is an actor, theater director, and general activist. He has a masters degree in Theater and directed Rocky Horror Picture show and Little Shop of Horrors here in Anchorage this fall. He also lived in Budapest for a number of years where he worked on AIDS prevention. I met him when he took a couple of public administration classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). He's won a number of awards recently for his AIDS education program - from the Municipality of Anchorage, from Planned Parenthood, and from an association of volunteer organizations in town. You can get to his website by clicking the title of this post.