Reflections on World AIDS Day in D.C.

By Melissa Donze, Zamora Fellow

On the evening before World AIDS Day, I took a walk down to the White House after work. As a recent transplant to D.C., the sight of the White House, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol still make me smile like a tourist. But this time, as I turned the corner and crossed through Lafayette Square, the sight of the White House took my breath away.

Draped across the North Portico was a big, red ribbon. It stood out so vividly against the white backdrop, and for a moment I stood there, frozen, completely entranced. It was an incredibly beautiful sight.

It’s been seven years since I first became actively involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS; seven years since I first started informing my high school peers about HIV; seven years since I found out that most people in my small hometown didn’t want to talk about sex or drugs or race or poverty because HIV “didn’t affect them.”

Admittedly, I was one of those people. I thought I was invincible, untouchable, unaffected. That all changed at the age of eleven, when I was diagnosed with Latent Tuberculosis. Nine months of medication, blood tests and doctor’s visits later, I stand here at the age of 22, happier and healthier than ever. I knew that the reason for my good health was the medicine I was taking, and despite financial struggles, there was never any question about affording my medication. I knew that in some way, I wanted to help those who weren’t given the chance to live, a chance I had been given without restriction or hesitation. It was a few years later on World AIDS Day 2005 that I learned about HIV through an amazing documentary, and it struck me like no other issue has struck me before; it is so incredibly preventable, yet there are still 30 million people living with HIV/AIDS today, over 1 million of which are in the United States.

Despite the fact that I had been commemorating World AIDS Day for years, this time felt different. It felt exhilarating. As I stood in front of the White House that night and gathered with strangers for a candlelight vigil the next day, I felt empowered in a way I had never felt before. There I was, standing in our nation’s capital, witnessing a fight that has always been so personal converging with the work I do daily in an incredibly powerful way. I am grateful every single day that I work at AIDS United as the Zamora Fellow, an opportunity that allows me to channel my truest passion into real, tangible progress and policy.

Just in the seven years that I have been involved in this fight, I have witnessed enormous progress. I have seen the advent of new science provide breakthrough methods of treatment and prevention. I have seen declines in transmission rates in many countries around the world. I have seen community-based organizations take innovative approaches to encourage testing and disseminate awareness about HIV-related issues. I have seen President Obama release the first ever National HIV/AIDS Strategy, which aims to reduce new HIV infections, increase access to care, reduce health inequities and HIV-related disparities, and coordinate a more effective response to the national epidemic.

At the same time, however, I see that incidence rates in the United States remain at around 50,000 new infections per year despite an abundance of information and resources to actually reduce the number of new infections. I see a huge disconnect in the number of people diagnosed with HIV and the number of people who have regular access to care and treatment. I see certain groups, especially young, African-American men who have sex with men (MSM), disproportionately affected by HIV. I see outdated policies and misguided notions perpetuate stigma and discrimination. I see newspaper columnists and government officials talk about the “global AIDS epidemic,” yet fail to consider HIV in the United States as part of this epidemic. I see an increasingly disillusioned population, in particular the youth, who do not care about HIV, who believe HIV doesn’t impact their lives in any way.

To them, I ask: Do you have sex? Do you have friends who have sex? If the answer is yes, then HIV has an impact on your life. Are you between the ages of 13-24? If the answer is yes, you are a part of the population that accounts for 25% of new HIV infections. HIV has an impact on your life. Do you live in an urban area or in the South, areas in which rates of HIV tend to be higher? If the answer is yes, HIV has an impact on your life. Do you have friends who have been tested for HIV? Have you yourself been tested for HIV? Regardless of your answer, HIV has an impact on your life.

This World AIDS Day, I remembered those we have lost, celebrated those still with us and reflected on the great strides we have made. In the face of the many challenges that confront us, I renewed my commitment to end this epidemic. We have come so far, and our success should be recognized. But we can’t let our past success preclude us from taking action today. We are at a crossroads in history; we have the science, political momentum and expertise to actually see the end of AIDS, but it requires us to take aggressive and coordinated action now.

I truly believe I will see the end of AIDS in my lifetime. Today, more than anything else, I have hope. And it is this hope that keeps me fighting every day.

A View of HIV from Kenya

by Julia Cheng, former AIDS United Zamora Fellow

Hello and habari zenu!

On this World AIDS Day, I greet you from Kenya.  I’m a Peace Corps volunteer working as a science teacher at a secondary school about 22 kilometers (about 14 miles) from the nearest paved road.  Two years ago, I was at AIDS United in the policy department as a Pedro Zamora fellow.

Today I’m Kisumu.  I’m running a half-marathon for Worlds AIDS Day.  Running this half marathon has got me thinking about the parallels between Kenya and in the U.S.   AU is finishing up its second year of the Team to End AIDS endurance training program.  That’s one similarity between the U.S. and Kenya.  But there are just as many differences for all the similarities.  In the year I’ve been here I’ve learned and experienced many things, some of which I wanted to share with you.

It might go without saying that my jobs in Kenya and in Washington, D.C. have been very different.  At AU, everyday, my work directly revolved around HIV and AIDS  and working on big picture issues.  As a teacher, my work has almost been the opposite.  Most of the time, I teach biology and physics which usually have little relevance to HIV.  But, once a week for each form (grade) I teach a life skills class where I get to talk about HIV, sex, goals, decision making, and all those unique challenges that teenagers and young adults face.  As a teacher, I work directly with students.

HIV in Kenya and the U.S. is very different.  Just by the statistics, Kenya differs from the U.S. by having a higher prevalence rate, around six percent.  Like other African countries, here the epidemic is generalized among the population.  But, attitudes to the virus are different too.  Ask any school age child what HIV or AIDS is and they’ll be able to tell you what it stands for, how you get it, and they might even be able to sing a song about it.  Yet, how well have they absorbed this information?  And of course, misinformation still abounds.

The biggest difference to me is not the misinformation–the things I heard growing up in Mississippi don’t always sound too different from here.  The major difference is comprehension and accesibility to alternative information.  In the U.S., there are books, libraries, the internet, or a trusted adult that a student can ask sensitive questions to.  In Kenya, that is not necessarily the case.  Access to books is lacking, at my school, students share the text books.  A few subjects have only three or four books for a classroom of forty.  Books outside of the required texts are rare and highly valued.  Students lack access to computers, the internet, and most importantly lack computer literacy.  The adult they may ask might have the same access or even less access to information as the student.  For those adults with information, the student may be too intimidated to ask.

Like all misinformation, some is obvious to students.  For example, during a model school exercise, I and other current volunteers asked students to play a game of “fact or myth.”  We had students write things they had heard about HIV and together, decided if they were facts or myths.  Some concepts, like “albino’s can’t get HIV,” students instinctively knew as a myth.  However, ideas like “condoms do not prevent against HIV” were more confusing.  My students and others across the country have heard both that condoms can protect them and that condoms are not 100% effective from veritable sources.  Which are they to believe?  Explaining why they might have heard both things and how both are true is where most of my work comes in.

Another big difference–that, to be honest, I haven’t quite yet figured out yet–are attitudes to testing.  For example, one life skills class, I decided to take my students to the local dispensary.  I wanted to expose them to where they could be tested and to show them what the process of testing and counseling looked like.  One of the clincians suggested that after the demonstration, students that wanted to be tested could do so.  I agreed, but expressed skepticism.  Yet, to my surprise, each and every student that I brought wanted to get tested.  This, despite my repeated assurances that they did not have to and were not expected to. In all, three fourths of the school (~160 students) were tested, the limiting factor become the number of available tests.

Attitudes and reactions to HIV are different everywhere.  Even attitudes and reactions to running are different everywhere.  In training for this half marathon, sometimes I’d have to explain myself.  In Kenya though, it’s easy for me to explain. Everyone here knows the word marathon since some of the top marathon runners in the world come from Kenya.  In some other places though, I don’t doubt most people would be craning their necks to see what I was running from.  In the U.S., attitudes to running and HIV can be highly geographic.  For HIV, this makes our job more difficult.  There’s no one method that we can use to tackle the epidemic.  But it can also help us.  Part of the reason I came here is that I’ve always appreciated learning from people different from me.  Learning how to live in a different country, run in a different country, and address HIV issues in a different country has made me a more capable person.  In a similar way, learning and experiencing other attitudes and ways of addressing HIV, we can become more capable at dealing with the full spectrum and diversity of our world and our country.

World AIDS Day in New Mexico

On this day of worldwide recognition for those living with and those who have already passed from HIV/AIDS, not to mention increasing numbers of HIV infection rates  amongst younger people, Team New Mexico was able to collaborate with the New Mexico Department of Health and the University of New Mexico LGBTQ Resource Center in Albuquerque to provide HIV testing for all students. We split up to administer tests at three locations set up throughout the campus giving students multiple opportunities to get tested during the day - The Student Union Building, El Centro de la Raza (Student Affairs), and the LGBTQ Resource Center. The turnout was great being that the temperature was in the 20s, and wind gusts reached up to 44mph.

Two weeks later, the NMDOH returned for a ”Results Day.”  Out of the 33 tests administered on World AIDS Day, 20 results were given. The response to the event could not have been better.

World AIDS Day 2011 in Tulsa, OK

World AIDS Day was certainly a long one this year, as there were two events going on in Tulsa. Instead of picking one, Team Tulsa decided to do them both! First we attended Tulsa CARES’ annual World AIDS Day Symposium. Tulsa CARES is an HIV/AIDS organization that works with HIV-positive people living in poverty. Then we went to Tulsa’s World AIDS Day program and premiere of “We Were Here,” a documentary about the early days of AIDS epidemic in San Francisco and how the city responded.

At the symposium, we learned about issues from a wide variety of sources facing people living with HIV/AIDS  in Tulsa . The first presenter, Jim Ott, talked to us about the “rush to judgment” that we fight against in our work with HIV. Then we had a panel of health experts talk about current and promising medical advances, including new drugs and trials. It was very informative, especially hearing from our HIV-positive audience members and learning their health concerns.

After lunch, Dr. Timothy Harrison from the  US Department of Health and Human Services explained how the National HIV/AIDS Strategy was created and how it would affect Oklahoma. Christopher Grano from the Northern Colorado AIDS Project talked to us about taking stigma out of our prevention materials. Instead of using scare tactics that make people living with HIV seem evil, negligent, or dangerous, he wants us to put people first and have sex-positive prevention materials that focus on good behaviors (getting tested, wearing condoms, not discriminating against people with HIV, etc). Our last presenter asked us to be mindful of the ethics in how we share information about clients with other agencies. Even though sharing might be legal through releases or lack of laws, it might not be ethical. The whole program helped us professionally and personally and was a good reminder that we have the information and medications to end AIDS.

At the candlelight vigil, we had a chance to remember our co-workers, clients, and friends with HIV who have passed. Then we went inside the independent movie theater to listen to stories from Tulsa’s early response to the HIV epidemic. We had a lot of former AmeriCorps site supervisors and an AmeriCorps member from the first team talk about their experiences at the beginning of the epidemic and their hopes for the future. There were lots of people dying in Oklahoma at the beginning, and Ric Harrison, a former AmeriCorps member, was a part of a VNA hospice group that help ease the passing of Tulsans with AIDS. Janice Nicklas, our city supervisor, talked about founding TCAP, Tulsa Community AIDS Project, and Tulsa CARES. It was good for the AmeriCorps team to hear these stories of the beginning of the epidemic since none of us had been born during that time. Hearing all the stories and hopes for the future made us feel more committed to the cause. We’ve come a long way since the beginning of the epidemic, but there’s still a lot more to do!

Team Carolina | World AIDS Day

On World AIDS Day, Team Carolina worked together to observe the impact of HIV and honor all those who have lost their lives to the pandemic. We were extremely grateful that so many organizations were honoring this day with community events, dance demonstrations, testing events, and university campus-wide shows. Due to the overwhelming amount of activities, Team Carolina members participated in their own host agency events as well as other community events. These events were located at North Carolina Central University, Shaw University, Veteran Affairs Medical Center of Durham, and the Hayti Heritage Center in Durham, on both November 30th, and December 1st.

At Stephanie’s placement, the Durham Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center was holding a World AIDS Day celebration at the chapel. The celebration kicked off with a Congolese drum and chant led by Dr. Ken Wilson, a physician from the infectious disease department, and his friend Pline Mounezo with the Durham VA Choir accompanying them. After the upbeat start to rev up the audience’s energy, we welcomed three speakers. Stephanie started things off and shared her previous experiences with HIV in Vietnam, how that translated to her work currently in the VA, and how HIV is disproportionately affecting the South. Jessica Fulton, the psychology intern in the infectious disease department, spoke of the mental health and issues HIV positive patients face. Our keynote speaker, Dr. Karen Goldstein, focused on HIV in women veterans and the importance of directing care and resources to this population. The chaplain, Carl Clark, gave closing to the ceremony through a moving vigil. With such a jam-packed program with enthusiastic speakers and performers, the program was very well received by the audience.

In addition, Partners in Caring, in collaboration with Duke University, participated in providing HIV testing to students at Shaw University in Raleigh, NC. While partnering with another advocacy organization, our team was able to test 45 university students. We also provided students with basic safe-sex education counseling, various educational pamphlets and brochures, and contraceptives. This initiative helped raise awareness and reduce the sigma around getting tested. The turnout was more than expected, but in our line of work, this is always an awesome thing.

Team NOLA on World AIDS Day 2011

Throughout the week of Dec. 1, 2011, New Orleans joined other cities around the world in observing World AIDS Day– a time of remembrance and awareness.

On Nov. 30, Team NOLA volunteered at a screening of “The Other City”– a documentary about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Washington, D.C. Donations were collected at the door to support a project to make HIV Awareness license plates for Louisiana. Team NOLA helped to promote, set-up, run, and break-down the event.

On Dec. 1, Team NOLA participated in the Facing AIDS project. We walked around parts of New Orleans, asking people if they would like to have their pictures taken with a message about how they are Facing AIDS. We were pleasantly surprised by how many people agreed.

The first part of our mobile photo shoot took place in the French Quarter. Next we went to the AIDS memorial in Washington Square Park where the Louisiana Office of Public Health does a wreath-laying ceremony every year. The last part of our photo shoot took place in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans.

We took pictures of ordinary citizens as well as people who have been involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS for many years. Everyone was given red ribbons and a flyer with our facebook page where they could access their photo later.

At night, at the request of the Office of Public Health, the lights on the Superdome were red in honor of World AIDS Day.

For other behind-the-scene shots, check out our facebook album!