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volume 10, number 1 • spring/summer 2004 IN THIS ISSUE: Hot Shot is Coming to a Bar Near You 2 Clinic Kicks- Hot Shot is not the name of a new trendy cocktail. It is the new community outreach program funded by the off Advertising New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), which goes where few government Campaign agencies have gone before, into gay bars. No they are not closing down the bars for inappropriate behavior. They are going into the bars to make gay men healthier. Hot Shot: Healthy Men’s Night Out is making gay 2 Legal Brief: Shibani’s men think about their health in new ways. Story The city hired party promoter Aaron Tanner to help out by coordinating the campaign. He brought bars and 3 Gerson Visits APICHA organizations including APICHA, Positive Health Project, Drag Initiative to Vanquish AIDS, CHEST, and GMHC together to go into the bars and talk to the customers. Tanner worked with bars and organizations to 3 APICHA Awarded find events that were already planned and that he and his merry band of volunteers and DOHMH workers could Government Funds attend and spread messages about health and wellness. 3 APICHA in the News The idea began in response to the increase of new syphilis cases among gay men in the city. In the early 1990’s syphilis had pretty much disappeared in New York City. Then in 1998 there was a dramatic increase in new 4 AIDS WALK NY syphilis cases. Between 2002 and 2003 there was a 22% increase, most of them in gay men. It was time to get the word out in a more effective way. DOHMH decided that one of the best ways to get the word out was to go 4 Food and Nutrition to the most popular gay bars in New York and tell people. Project To toot our own horn a bit, in a recent story about Hot Shot that appeared in the New York Blade (March 26, 5 Policing The Girls: 2004 Issue) Mr. Tanner called Asian and Pacific Islanders Coalition on HIV and AIDS the best HIV counseling Know Your Rights group he has worked with. (continued on p. 3) and How to Handle Yourself on the Street and in Court Federal Officials 6 Become an Visit APICHA Advocate Carol Thompson, Acting Director 6 How Do A & PI’s Feel of the White House Office of About AIDS? National AIDS Policy, Ladd Wiley, Counsel to Health and Human 7 Voter Awareness Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson, and Christopher Bates, 8 Banquet of 1001 a longtime friend to APICHA and Champions the Acting Director of HIV/AIDS Policy at HHS, came to visit 8 Staff Retreat APICHA on May 4th. They were briefed by our staff about the impact of HIV/AIDS in the A & Published by the Asian & PI community and the difficulties Pacific Islander Coalition on in providing services and creating HIV/AIDS. APICHA is a non- profit organization providing prevention materials for the HIV/AIDS related services, diverse populations that make up including HIV primary care the community. After the briefing and testing, prevention education, food and nutrition, they were given a tour of our clinic and other support services for and offices. A week after her visit Asian and Pacific Islander President Bush announced that he communities, especially people living with HIV/AIDS in was promoting Ms. Thompson to New York City. Director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. APICHA’s Clinic Kicks-off LEGAL BRIEF: Shibani’s Story Advertising Campaign Many clients come to APICHA with unique legal problems. The U.S. legal system can be APICHA, working with MK Advertising, is kicking-off a new advertising campaign to inform and difficult to navigate, even for people who are attract more clients to our HIV Primary Care Clinic. The clinic, which opened a year ago, makes born here, but the courts and the United States APICHA a one-stop facility to better serve the needs of our clients. Ads similar to the photos Citizenship and Immigration Services can below are currently running in various publications. be extremely difficult to navigate if you are an immigrant, with a limited knowledge of Dr. David D. Kim, APICHA’s Medical Director said, “The number of HIV infections in Asia is English, and you are living with HIV/AIDS. continuing to grow at alarming rates and will soon surpass Africa as the part of the world with the most people living with HIV and AIDS. As more and more people travel between Asia and the Three years ago a woman came to APICHA United States, the epidemic will travel along with them. Asia and the Pacific Islands are made up for legal help after no other immigration of 49 different cultures with people who speak more than 100 different languages. To serve those attorneys would take her case. She arrived people is a daunting task. APICHA was founded to do just that for A & PI’s living in New York in New York full of hope for a new life in City. Our new HIV Primary Care Clinic was created to provide confidential and comprehensive the U.S. but life doesn’t always turn out care in an environment that is sensitive to the cultural and linguistic needs of A & PI’s who have the way you expect it to. The woman, let’s limited access to affordable healthcare.” call her Shibani, emigrated from a small, remote village in a South Asian country. Clinic services include: free and confidential HIV and STD testing, comprehensive primary care She had to travel a long distance from her from HIV specialists, mental health counseling, support groups, acupuncture, nutrition counseling village to the large city she departed from. It featuring ethnic cuisine, legal assistance, and help in obtaining government benefits and services. was necessary to sell all of her possessions APICHA’s services are provided regardless of your income, insurance, or immigrant status, and are to pay for her journey. Her husband and free of charge or based on a sliding fee scale. For info call 1-866-APICHA-9 or 1-866- 274-2429. children, who were already in the U.S., had acquired legal status as either U.S. citizens …the courts and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services can be extremely difficult to navigate if you are an immigrant…and you are living with HIV/AIDS. or as permanent residents. Shibani, who was undocumented, arrived to discover that her husband was in a hospital bed, gravely ill with AIDS. Since she had sexual contact with her husband on his visits back home, she was advised to take an HIV test. Her test came back positive. Often a positive The many faces of Men who test result can mean immediate deportation. have Sex with Men (MSM) in Finally she came to APICHA for help. One the Asian and Pacific Islander of our case managers took Shibani under Community. Our goal is to raise her wing. The case manager spoke Shibani’s awareness among the MSM language, understood her customs, and population and to convince knew how to help her. APICHA’s consulting them to come in and get an HIV attorney agreed to take her case. It took more test at our clinic. It is important than 3 years to resolve but finally Shibani for people to know their status. was granted asylum and issued a green card. If they test positive they can get She and her family are doing very well. They the proper care and treatment. If are now APICHA clients, living legally in they test negative they can learn the U.S. and getting the proper life sustaining how to stay negative. medical care they so desperately need. This story has a happy ending. 2 Asian & Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Inc. Gerson Visits APICHA City Council Member Alan J. Gerson visited APICHA’s offices on April 20th. He was given a tour and a briefing about AIDS in the A & PI community and the services provided by APICHA. Council Member Gerson represents Lower Manhattan including Chinatown. He is working with his Council colleagues to secure additional city funding for APICHA. He is seen in this photo with Associate Director, Client Services Shu Hui Wu, Executive Director Therese R. Rodriguez, Chair of the Board Kevin Huang-Cruz, and his Health Care Coordinator Luis Reyes. Hot Shot… (continued from cover) The program keeps growing and now offers testing for HIV, gonorrhea, syphilis, cholesterol, and administers hepatitis A and B vaccines, flu shots, smoking patches, and drug abuse information. Bars that have held successful events include SBNY, Therapy, The View, XL, Urge, and The Eagle. At one of these bars, 4% of the men tested were seropositive and did not know it. To date more than 183 men have participated and 5 tested positive. So the next time you are standing in a bar and a stranger comes up to you and asks about your health, don’t think he is coming on to you. He might be one of the Hot Shots. For more information about dates and venues where APICHA will be offering HIV tests, contact Bric Bernas at (212) 334-7940 ext. 202. APICHA Awarded APICHA in the News Government Funds APICHA recently had 2 great “press hits”. APICHA was recently awarded 3 new allocations of money from • NY 1 News – On May 11th NY 1 News Health Reporter Itay federal and city government. Hod did an important story titled, “Asia May Surpass Africa as Region with the Greatest Number of AIDS Cases”.