When I last sat down with some of my friends at AIDS Vancouver they mentioned that fighting the stigma surrounding HIV disease and AIDS is the hardest battle in the war on AIDS. It’s a sentiment that was also mentioned numerous times in a book I just finished called 28 Stories of AIDS In Africa.
People will generally tell themselves that they are not the ones who are going to transmit the disease or “only gay men and drug users get AIDS.” When the disease first arrived in Africa they couldn’t even explain who was getting it or why— but if you did have it you were cast aside to die alone.
The truth is that folks who feel they aren’t at risk and engage in risky behaviour because “it will never happen to them,” are the ones who are getting the disease. People who aren’t thinking, planning, screening for or just talking about HIV disease and AIDS are the ones who are the highest at risk.
So we talk about it with everyone who listens. With our chopper contest we’re trying to raise money for AIDS Vancouver so they can talk to young people about HIV/AIDS and we can see that rate of transmission drop. We still hear people deny they are at risk or blame it on a demographic that is not their own but for the most part people are changing the way they see this disease and becoming more proactive.
There are approximately 15,000 people who are living in Canada with HIV disease who don’t know they have been infected. Every two hours another person gets HIV. AIDS is not curable and even with antiretroviral drugs it is painful and will gradually deteriorate your health.
Donate to AIDS Vancouver now and enter to win a Vancouver Custom Chopper Motorcycle. Visit www.choppertickets.com to help spread the word about HIV prevention and join the fight against AIDS in Canada.
1 comment:
This is a great endeavor. I would like to encourage people to also consider helping people living in a forgotten part of the world: the U.S. affiliated Pacific region--American Samoa, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Palau, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam--which suffers enormous health disparities due in part to limited Federal assistance, and in part due to the post-colonial era annual per capita income: for example, it is only $2,900 in the Marshall Islands, and $2,300 in the Federated States of Micronesia. For comparison, the U.S. annual per capita income is $46,000. Even a small donation to the GUAHAN Project (http://www.guahanproject.org/index.php)--the regional AIDS service organization--can make a huge difference in stemming the tide of HIV in these small, culturally rich enclaves that could be destroyed by HIV/AIDS.
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