For Immediate Release:
June 27, 2015

Contact: Lisa Samuels
gcmedia@gmail.com

Transatlantic rower marks National HIV Testing Day at Charleston Maritime Center

Charleston, South Carolina - Victor Mooney (49) of Queens, New York is on the last leg of a five-thousand mile plus transatlantic row the started off the coast of Africa in February 2014. His mission is in honor of all those that died from AIDS, including his brother and to encourage voluntary HIV testing.

The finished line, which has taken three failed attempts is New York's Brooklyn Bridge. Mr. Mooney twenty-four foot ocean rowboat, Spirit of Malabo, is slated to be donated to the United Nations in Septembers as a symbol for the fight against AIDS.

This year’s theme for National HIV Testing Day (NHTD) is “Take the Test. Take Control.” Launched in 1995, the annual observance day aims to raise awareness around the issue and encourage HIV testing.

When: June 27, 2015
Where: Charleston Maritime Center, 10 Wharfside St, Charleston, SC 29401
When: 11am

Photo: Goree Island, Senegal [07 May 2006] - US rower, African-American Victor Mooney prays under the eyes of two African American women described as his 'spiritual mothers' before he leaves via 'the gate from which no-one returned' at the UNESCO World Heritage site House of Slaves on the island of Goree.

For centuries one of the largest slave-trading centers in West Africa. Mooney will row across the Atlantic to raise money to fight AIDS and to memorialize his slave ancestors who died in these same waters and those who were deported from the continent to work in plantations in the Caribbean and in Americas. (AFP credit)