WORLD AIDS DAY: What's Missing?

December One demands my attention every year.  World AIDS Day began in 1988...twenty years and where are we?  The statistics do not seem to impress the public any longer.  Even though women are the growing group with HIV, they have no advocacy groups like those for breast cancer.  Because they are women of color?

The other day, I took a picture of my latest knit sweater  for Roxie.  For the white  background needed, I moved a framed picture.  It was a  Xractal I made titled    "Loving What's Left." At its center is a  neckpiece I made in 1993 with shells and a key, dedicated to a hope that a cure would be found soon for AIDS.  My focus has shifted since then. 

Prevention is what I speak to with Condom Amulets.  Treatment is important.  But not enough for the future of my granddaughter who will wear this little blue  sweater.  Her generation needs us to make Safe Sex as powerful a public health issue as smoking has become--in the United States.  So many are more comfortable with focusing on  HIV/AIDS in Africa--so far away, so different from us here.

The most depressing movie I saw at the recent Margaret Meade Film Festival was "Today the Hawk Takes One Chick."  Gogos, the grandmothers in Swaziland, are left to care for their HIV-positive grandchildren.  Their  parents are dying in great numbers.  Health resources are sparse.  I was overwhelmed.  The entire country seems doomed.

Taking a break from writing this, I walked into the other room.  Ron was trying to find something to watch while he spins wool.  By chance, he found "All of Us," a documentary  on cable.  Turned out to be a strong film-- sad and hopeful.  It followed  Mahret Handefro, an American residen (from an Ethiopian family) at Montefiore Hospital in the South Bronx. Her goal was to  develop a program that would move women of color to take more control of their sexual interactions with men.  In 90 minutes much territory is covered here and briefly in Ethiopia where she speaks with women who feel powerless in  dealing with men's sexual demands.  In the Bronx she works with two HIV-positive patients, with peers, and with her own issues around men. 

Mahret develops what she names a "truth circle."  She educates with hard factson the impact of unprotected sex on black women's lives--blacks who are only 12 % of the U.S. population but 68% of the HIV/AIDS population.  Consciousness raising sessions  bring it all  together.  All the women  struggle with the question, "When do you bring it [safe sex] up with a man?" One of Mahret's patients acknowledges that she's realized too late that "men were a drug for me."

 Mahret is open about her own problem with setting limits in relationships during a group meeting with her peers. As she points out, this is "true primary prevention." What's missing and more elusive is work with men.  Women can change; men have to also.  I hope you see the film, perhaps rent it to share with others.

Last summer the New York City Health Department began "The Bronx Knows," an ambitious program to reach the 250,000 people in that borough who have never had an HIV test.    Health professionals know that HIV testing carries less of a stigma when it is a routine part of health care.  Dr. Donna Futterman,  co-chair of the program,  looks forward to the Bronx  becoming "the first community in the nation where everyone knows their status.”  It is impressive that it began in June  HIV testing has increased 20% in the Bronx.

Lately I've been thinking more about the category on my blog, "Grandmotherhood Now."  Maybe this came about when I learned  that  Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, will move to the White House with the new President's family and Joe Biden's mother is going with him and his wife to D.C.  Will we  hear more about  elder concerns?  

I'm always on the lookout for ways  grandmothers--and grandfathers--can encourage ideas important to the future of young people.  Besides what I've described in the South Bronx, there's Making Proud Choices for teens at Planned Parenthood  in Portland, Oregon.    If you know of others, please leave a comment here along with thoughts you have about input elders might offer.  Of course, financial support is always crucial.    

Comments

[Kay Dennison]

I always forget it's AIDS day -- not because I don't care because you know that I do. December 1st is my son's birthday so that is what I remember.

I love Roxie's sweater and I know she will look adorable in it. I know you will help her to make good choices as she grows up. Hopefully, she will listen as well as my children did.

[Lydia]

Once again I am grateful to have you and your blog in my life. What an important post. Thank you for never letting up on this subject. Another on my blogroll is a critical care nurse who also wrote on this topic today. You will enjoy reading her post, and vice versa (so I'm letting her know about this one).
http://tidingsofmagpies.blogspot.com/2008/12/
latex-its-good-thing.html

The sweater is absolutely perfect!

[lydia]

P.S.
Try this link. I didn't realize that by splitting the link onto a separate line it would make one line a "hot link" and the other not so. Sorry.
http://tidingsofmagpies.blogspot.com/2008/12/latex-its-good-thing.html

[AnnieH]

Sent here from Lydia and Writerquake...well, hello, sista:>)!!So happy to read your blog. Like minds and all that... HIV and AIDS are still on the minds of many, but the public service announcements have dropped dramatically. Schools here are still discussing the infection and the disease--both the public and the Catholic schools that my children attended. You may get some hope from the Robert Gallo Op Ed piece that I've linked to, and I was really surprised at the amount of help that President Bush put into the AIDS initiative in Africa. Dr. Gallo is right--it gives us a blueprint to take into our third world urban areas in the US to salvage the afflicted there. Enough of my yakking...good to meet you:>)

[Marianna Scheffer]

We are the world on this one, too. Wonderful, wonderful post.
I consider it a great privilege to have met you and Ron! You are in the very center of things and I live way out on the edge, and yet we seem to converge.

[Judy Welles]

Good post, and a timely one for me, as I will be preaching about World AIDS Day this Sunday 12/7. My church (www.uucv.net) has a very hands-on, small but effective project in northern Mozambique where we raise $$ (here) to support girls' education past 5th grade. Educated girls delay the onset of sexual activity, have fewer children, and tend to raise the standard of living in their villages. This year we are supporting 98 girls -- next year we are aiming for 188. Our project is strongly linked to a cluster of Anti-AIDS after-school clubs for girls where they learn about prevention, resisting the sexual advances of men, self-esteem and general empowerment.

This is so very important worldwide; it's not a question of whether it's more important to work on AIDS prevention here or there -- it's everywhere!

If anyone wants to know more about our project (or give us some money!), write to me at judy@uucv.net.