Harvard undergraduate and graduate students advocate for a $5 billion increase in PEPFAR funds at the Rally to Fight AIDS organized by the Global Health and AIDS Coalition last Friday outside the Kennedy School of Government.

In a protest outside the Institute of Politics last Friday, 75 Harvard students urged the Barack Obama administration to pledge $5 billion to fight AIDS at a conference on diseases that is taking place in New York today and tomorrow.

The group of undergraduates and Harvard Medical School students said they were hoping to garner the attention of Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis, who spoke at the IOP last Friday.

The Harvard Global Health and AIDS Coalition (HAC), the Harvard African Students Association, and the Medical School’s Students for Global Health spearheaded the event, according to HAC member Marguerite Thorp ’11.

Krishna M. Prabhu ’11, an HAC member who helped organize the protest, said that the groups had decided to rally during Solis’ event because she was the most influential administration member coming to the University before the conference.

Before her speech, Solis greeted the protestors. Citing the health care reform bill—which was passed in March of this year—the secretary told them that Obama supports global and public health initiatives.

“We’re all on the same side,” she said, “and so is the president.”

Though Prabhu said the protest succeeded in relaying its message to Solis, he added that it was too early to know if the rally was successful.

“Success will come once we find if Solis has talked to President Obama about the issue,” Prabhu said.

Before and after Solis spoke to the crowd, the protestors took turns speaking and participated in chants.

Nancy E. Ringel, a first-year at Harvard Medical School who volunteered in Zambia with the Peace Corps, said that the AIDS epidemic has affected her personally.

“[I had] close friends die because they couldn’t get the treatment they needed,” Ringel said.

“If we can give a trillion-dollar bailout to banks on Wall Street, we should be able to commit $5 billion to fight AIDS,” she added.