"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. Photo: Provided

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.

About Kingsborough Community College:

Founded in 1963 and part of The City University of New York (CUNY) system, Kingsborough Community College’s beautiful 70-acre waterfront campus is located in Manhattan Beach, on the southern tip of Brooklyn, New York. Named one of the top community colleges in the country by The New York Times, KCC offers a wide range of credit and non-credit courses in the liberal arts and career education to all students with a high school diploma or GED.