Is AIDS Activism Dead? Kaiser Family Foundation July 19, 2010
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Transcript provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation1 (Tip: Click on the binocular icon to search this document) Is AIDS Activism Dead? Kaiser Family Foundation July 19, 2010 1 The Kaiser Family Foundation makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of written transcripts, but due to the nature of transcribing recorded material and the deadlines involved, they may contain errors or incomplete content. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Is AIDS Activism Dead? 2 Kaiser Family Foundation 7/19/10 [START RECORDING] KEVIN MOODY: I apologize for the delay, we were setting this up as a talk show format to be a little bit informal, and we thought that it would be closer to you if we were in front of the table instead of hiding behind it. So we just wanted to do a few more arrangements. The format of this, as I said, is going to be a talk show, so it’s going to be informal. We won’t have formal presentations. I have a number of questions that I’ve prepared for our guests and we’ll go through those questions and then we’ll also give you an opportunity to ask questions of the guests. But before we do that, I just want to say a disclaimer. I am a pharmacist. I’m really not an activist, although at the end of the day of this session, I may actually feel like more of an activist, because I’ve been working in PLHAV activism in a professional way for probably the last five or six years. My name is Kevin Moody, I’m the International Coordinator of the Global Network of People Living with HIV and it’s a pleasure to be here today. And I guess as we ask the question, is AIDS activism dead, we might want to reflect on yesterday’s action in, just before the opening. How many people took part in that demonstration? Not that many from here. 1 The Kaiser Family Foundation makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of written transcripts, but due to the nature of transcribing recorded material and the deadlines involved, they may contain errors or incomplete content. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Is AIDS Activism Dead? 3 Kaiser Family Foundation 7/19/10 So maybe it is dead. I mean, so it was the first time I died in an action, it was a die-in, and I found it really interesting. How many people here are from either North America or Western Europe? Okay, and of those people who aren’t from those regions, in your countries would an action like that be possible? So if you live outside of North America and Europe, could you have an action like that? Put up your hand. And where would – and if you’re living outside of North America and Europe could you get arrested for doing something like we did yesterday? Okay. So yesterday was a type of activism, that is imported from the early days of the movement and it was really effective and there was a lot of attention and a lot of people heard us. I haven’t been able to look at the press since yesterday, but I’m really interested and curious to see what kind of response that we got for that. So today we’re going to talk a lot about activism and different types of activism, and I want to introduce the panel. I’m going to just introduce them and ask them then to provide just a very short description of what they do in activism currently. Okay? My first guest beside me is Amal El; sorry about this I’m really gonna mess up this one, Karouaoui? AMAL EL KAROUAOUI: Yep, Karouaoui. 1 The Kaiser Family Foundation makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of written transcripts, but due to the nature of transcribing recorded material and the deadlines involved, they may contain errors or incomplete content. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Is AIDS Activism Dead? 4 Kaiser Family Foundation 7/19/10 KEVIN MOODY: Karouaoui? Karouaoui. AMAL EL KAROUAOUI: Yes. KEVIN MOODY: Amal, can you describe to us what kind of activism that it is that you do? AMAL EL KAROUAOUI: Yes, I work at, with the most at risk population to HIV, key population to HIV/AIDS and I work with the outreach worker directly and programs. I think this manner needs to be very near of the field of some activism we don’t, just one issue, it’s my English is very bad. If you have problem I switch in Arabic, I think everybody there understand. I think the outreach work it’s for me, good manner to be near of the needs of the population, hear the population, hear the problems. And to be like one person, bridge between the key population and institutions. And that’s it yes, so. KEVIN MOODY: Great, thank you. And where is it that you work? AMAL EL KAROUAOUI: I work in the [inaudible]. KEVIN MOODY: Yes. AMAL EL KAROUAOUI: I’m from middle earth, I am from Morocco but I work in for the Middle East in North Africa programs. I work with a lot of institutions like UNAIDS for example and we have possibility to do the activism but the matter of working directly with the communities and the, yes. KEVIN MOODY: Okay, thank you, we’ll get more into that in a few minutes. 1 The Kaiser Family Foundation makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of written transcripts, but due to the nature of transcribing recorded material and the deadlines involved, they may contain errors or incomplete content. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Is AIDS Activism Dead? 5 Kaiser Family Foundation 7/19/10 AMAL EL KAROUAOUI: Yes. KEVIN MOODY: Our next guest, sitting next to her is Sophie Strachan. Sophie? SOPHIE STRACHAN: Strachan. KEVIN MOODY: Strachan? Okay. SOPHIE STRACHAN: Yes. Hi, my name’s Sophie Strachan. I’m an HIV positive woman. I was diagnosed in prison just over seven years ago. I’m also a ex-drug user and openly gay. And I work for an organization called Positively UK. We campaign for people living with HIV. Historically for twenty-three years we worked solely with women and families affected by HIV. We now launched as Positively UK this year and we’re now working with men. Our values are very much about advancing the rights of people living with HIV and the way that we have affected change is by our peer support, Ethos which is support workers who are HIV positive themselves, working at a ground level, offering one to one interventions, group settings, volunteering, and policy and involvement. What I feel particularly passionate about and in the years that I’ve been working for Positively UK is very much about when I left prison after my experience in prison, it was, I felt really strongly for the need of robust policies within UK prisons, because there aren’t any. To raise awareness for 1 The Kaiser Family Foundation makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of written transcripts, but due to the nature of transcribing recorded material and the deadlines involved, they may contain errors or incomplete content. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Is AIDS Activism Dead? 6 Kaiser Family Foundation 7/19/10 the harm discriminatory practice can cause, not just in prisons but also in health settings and by health professionals. And there are a number of women who actively are working in changing policy and involvement by attending the Houses of Parliament and having a key part in changing government policies. KEVIN MOODY: Thanks Sophie. And next to Sophie is Robert Carr. Robert, can you tell us the types of activism that you’re involved in now and maybe what you’ve done in your previous work? ROBERT CARR: Well, I have been an activist for a long time actually, but in terms of the work I’ve done in relation to HIV that really began in 1988 when I left the United States and went back home to Jamaica. At that time I did a small study of stigma against people living with HIV in Jamaica and I was absolutely horrified at what I’d found. I’d just come from Washington D.C. where things had changed dramatically since the 1980s, but in Jamaica things were absolutely horrific. People were being turned out of their homes by their families, people were being abused in health centers and in hospitals, and on top of that nobody was saying anything about it and anybody who tried to say something about it was shut down by the authorities. And I became so enraged by this that I decided I was going to speak out. 1 The Kaiser Family Foundation makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of written transcripts, but due to the nature of transcribing recorded material and the deadlines involved, they may contain errors or incomplete content. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Is AIDS Activism Dead? 7 Kaiser Family Foundation 7/19/10 That eventually led to a job running an HIV, a national HIV NGO and while there I discovered that the programs providing outreach to men who have sex with men in particular in Jamaica, that the clients that we were having group counseling sessions with and one on one counseling sessions with on a Tuesday would come back on a Thursday and Friday, having been put out of their homes, having been beaten, and in some cases, that this was with the complicity of the police.