aids-write.org

welcome readers from first international carnival of pozitivities.

chers:

deya smith-starks, the manager of advocacy & marketing for prevention programs for aids healthcare foundation, has asked for an estimate of the number of people who plan to attend wednesday night’s forum/discussion, i assume for refreshments. please rsvp to her and cc it to me. half a dozen of you have indicated to me privately your interest in attending, prior to significant publicity, but if you could give us a heads-up by wednesday morning, we’d appreciate it.

1-800-553-8502
Deya.Smith@aidshealth.org
rk@aids-write.org

From: Deya Smith
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006
To: Richard Kearns
Subject: RE: Community Forum Agenda

Hi Richard:

Please send me a short statement on your position of the campaign. . . .

As for the poem, you can mention that it’s [available] in the back [of the meeting room] but I want the forum to be more interactive so I’d prefer you did not read it. [i thought it was very good (from another note)]

I’ll send you another agenda to post –that one [you have] was internal. I’m trying to get a good count so if you can get a sense of how many in your network will be attending that would be great.

Deya

From: Richard Kearns
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006
To: Deya Smith
Subject: RE: Community Forum Agenda

[slightly amended]

deya,

ultimately, i’d say the ahf “hiv (not fabulous)” campaign was flawed and inadequate to our needs for hiv prevention, but was a start in the right direction. i applaud it. however, stopping the spread of aids is not like running an initiative campaign or selling chewing gum. ultimately, this is social medicine. if it were pills, we’d see if the negative side effects outweighed the benefits.

stigma is a horror. so is new infection. the same horror. not either/or. that’s a problem with ads that unintentionally stigmatize hivers. that’s a problem with ads that are not brutally and unflinchingly honest in warning the uninfected.

my conclusion from the discussions during and after the aids-write.org politics & poetry forum in january: the most effective prevention program is one that supports a one-on-one prevention effort. one that informs one-on-one prevention. one that encourages the infected and the uninfected to work together.

i recommend ahf commission, compile, select, edit, produce, advertise and distribute a yearly multimedia anthology, “the state of aids in los angeles & the world,” with contributions from regionally-, nationally- and internationally- known writers, thinkers, visual artists, journalists, scientists, musicians, physicians, clinicians, researchers, public health policy officials, community leaders, ngos and whoever else is willing to tell his or her story of life with hiv/aids. give the public an accessible knowledge base of our experiences.

it would be the new aids quilt, commemorating not our deaths, but our lives. stopping the spread of the disease by making our experiences with it part of the cultural landscape.

i am a practicer of cultural activism, so to me, the ahf social marketing campaign represents a significant opportunity to dramatically improve the character and effectiveness our current prevention enterprises by telling our stories. we need to change minds and move hearts. that won’t happen because of statistics or court orders or legislated morality or self-righteous outrage. our stories of our lives with hiv/aids are much more powerful tools for social change than mere political confrontation. take a look at my blogsite, http://aids-write.org.

hope that’s clear and short enough. ok for off the top of my head. i suppose i’ll use it with the post of my poem for the forum tonight.

looking forward to this. catch you later.

rk

the unconfirmed list of panel members deya forwarded on the internal document includes:

Moderator – Deya Smith-Starks
Panelists:
• Michael Weinstein, AIDS Healthcare Foundation President and Founder
• Karen Mall, Director, Director of Prevention and Testing
• Les Pappas, President of Better World Advertising
• Gil Mangaoang, Spokes model HIV (not) Fabulous Campaign
• Duane Cramer, Campaign Photographer
• Richard Kearns, Community HIV Advocate

i will post her confirming document when i receive it.

hope to see you there.

–lyr

please click on this sentence to go to the top of aids-write.org.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 at 6:57 am and is filed under ahf, aids, awo call to action, awo multi-part suite, comments to readers, contains rks original photography, graphic art, cultural activism, earlier on awo (reprints and followups), gay issues, hiv, hiv disease, hiv/aids, hiv/aids stigma, int'l carnival pozitivities, lgbt, poetry, politics, politics&poetry, upcoming events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.