MSC Delivers Rowboat for Global HIV Testing Campaign

The Goree Challenge is a 5,000 mile solo transatlantic row from the Canary Islands to New York. Kingsborough Community College is providing technical assistance for the ocean rowboat, christened The Spirit of Malabo.

The Spirit of Malabo, a 24-foot ocean rowboat, arrived at Kingsborough Community College, of the City University of New York (CUNY) on Thursday from Brazil. The Spirit of Malabo will be used for a 5,000 mile solo transatlantic row from the Canary Islands to New York's Brooklyn Bridge, with a re-supply in the British Virgin Islands later this year.

The MSC Krystal, a shipping container company, carried vessel to New York. Local logistics in New York were coordinated by DSV Air and Freight.

The rowboat will be the engine behind a global campaign to encourage HIV testing. The Maritime Technology program at the college is providing technical assistance.

"It's amazing and humbling at the same time for the support this college has provided", said Victor Mooney on the campus of Kingsborough Community College.Mooney will be making his fourth bid to cross the Atlantic Ocean with this boat.

Today, an estimated 34 million people worldwide live with HIV/AIDS, with more than two-thirds living in developing countries. Nearly three-fourths of the 2.5 million new HIV infections in 2011 occurred in these countries. More than 1.1 million people in the U.S. are infected with HIV and hundreds of thousands don’t know it. Mooney has lost one brother to AIDS and has another battling the disease.

Goree Challenge is a project of the New York City based South African Arts International (SAAI). SAAI has received unprecedented amount of support from over seventy corporations, an array of governments, educational and global health institutions.

www.kbcc.cuny.edu

www.sunymaritime.edu

in20minutes.org

marquegolsparabrasil.com