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From prevention strategies to treatments, scientists in labs all across North Carolina have made great strides in eradicating HIV. Advocates are working to educate people about the ever-widening scope of the epidemic, to lessen stigma, and to encourage people to protect themselves. The New Age of HIV/AIDS details how far they've come and how much work is still to do. The program introduces you to the people who live each day with the disease and its physical and emotional effects. But behind each of those people is a story, sometimes of struggle and sadness, but also of encouragement and inspiration.
"I was telling them that I had a two-year-old and I was going through some court changes, and I was real stressed out. I really needed some help, and they told me they'd send somebody out to talk to me," recounts an HIV-positive woman in Charlotte, who asked to remain anonymous. She says her encouragement and inspiration came from total strangers, volunteers with the Regional Aids Interfaith Network in Charlotte, or RAIN.
"We organize teams of volunteers from various congregations of all faiths and train them to offer compassionate care, support, friendship, and practical services to people living with AIDS," says Rev. Deborah Warren , RAIN's President and Chief Executive Officer. "We think it's so simple, but when we know people care about us, genuinely care about us and aren't there to judge us, our health, our attitude, our spirituality, everything about us makes a complete turnaround."
When Reverend Warren founded RAIN in 1992, she says faith communities were not doing enough to respond to HIV and AIDS.
"There was not a predominant message of compassion coming forward from the faith communities."
“Initially I knew of people who were told not to come back to church because they were infected initially, but I think that's one of the things RAIN has done is to provide education within the community in such a way of educating the community of faith to where there's not the fear and the phobias that used to exist around the disease,” says David Witt . He has lived with HIV for 18 years and has been with his care team for eight of them.
"Their presence actually through the years has actually helped me to regain my faith and helped me to move back into a church where I'm comfortable, and at the same time their presence has pretty much represented the presence of God in my life," Witt says.
Susan Bullard believes the same is true for her. She says volunteering with a care team for four years and developing a relationship with their HIV-positive partner, Gregory, has reinforced her own faith.
“He uplifts our faith in other people, in the Lord," Bullard says. "I don't see how you could do this work and not have a strong faith to call on for strength."
Educating faith communities is another central part of RAIN's mission. Minority program director Reverend Dr. Carl Arrington says churches are powerful places to teach people, especially in the South, where they have tremendous influence.
"If you can get churches talking about this issue you can open doors so people can begin talking about it, becoming educated about it, helping present prevention information and also show the churches how they should respond to the issue of AIDS and those who are living with the disease," Arrington says.
Care team volunteer Florence Scott says she's become more educated and more compassionate working with her team's partners over the years.
"They're all different," Scott says. "They have all been all extremely different and they have all stretched me. I've had to get out of my comfort zone. I've had to stretch far more than I ever thought I would ever have to."
But she says the stretch is worth it.
"Our last partner was the most wonderful woman," Scott remembers. "She was 67. She was the most wonderful person. She had no regrets in her life, none whatsoever, and she gave me more than anything. She just said live today. She loved the Lord, we prayed, we never left without praying or her singing. It's been wonderful.”
"I probably love it for all the wrong reasons," says Susan Bullard. "One of the things I heard was you will get more than you give, and I get so much from these people, which sounds kind of self-serving but it's not; it's the kind of gift that they give me, it's gifts of the heart, friendship, it's building a relationship with somebody that you probably never would have known."
The HIV-positive woman we spoke with earlier in this segment says that relationship can make all the difference in the world. "It makes you feel good to know that somebody cares. Somebody really cares."
And as devastating as HIV can be, the people who live with it say the other thing that gets them through it is hope, symbolized at the annual AIDSWALK in Raleigh by all the people pounding the pavement to raise awareness and inspire others to action.
"I'm here to represent all the people I know who live with HIV and AIDS," says Vivianne Valdes-Hurtado, an HIV Clinic Manager in Vance County.
Rebecca McQueen, who participated in the AIDSWALK, says, "I feel like it is the one section of people that are most easily forgotten.
But not here. Not today.
"The very first special person in my life, I lost him to AIDS, and so this kind of gives me a way to fight back for the loss I suffered," says Paul Slovensky.
He joined more than one thousand other people for the AIDSWALK, an army of advocates organized by the Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina.
"While we were walking we looked back and just saw everybody winding down, and it was very honoring that we all came together," McQueen says.
They came together to remember those lost.
"I'm from New York, and almost all my friends are gone," says Abe Lopez.
Those living.
"Day by day, people are being infected: children, adults, women more than ever," says Nancy Brown.
And those they say they must protect.
"We need to raise more money to bring awareness to AIDS and let folks know that it's not just a gay disease," says Barbara Washington. "It affects everyone."
And they say it will take everyone working together to overcome it.
"Too many people all look around and say it's not affecting us," says Lopez.
"We should be aware that AIDS can touch anybody and that HIV is a problem for our entire community, independent of age, race, or gender," says Lynne Bresler.
"We should not relax," says Brown. "We should be more informed than ever. Don't sleep."
"That's why we're here," says McQueen. "We have to hope. We wouldn't be here; we would give up if we didn't have hope."
And in this new age of HIV/AIDS, the people who live with the disease say that hope keeps them alive.
"There's not a cure, but there's still hope," says HIV positive teenager Gerrod Henderson.
"I've taken this virus, and I haven't let this virus take me," says recent college graduate Jonathan Perry.
"Being positive, it's just being thankful that you're still here," says Fred Wiggins, who lived with AIDS for more than ten years before losing his battle to the disease during the production of this documentary. |
