AEGiS-BAYW: Community work: JRI's Douglas Brooks focuses on giving back what he's been given

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Community work: JRI's Douglas Brooks focuses on giving back what he's been given

Bay Windows - August 25, 2005
Laura Kiritsy, lkiritsy@baywindows.com.

Douglas Brooks learned a few things about social justice growing up in Macon, Ga. He learned that his grandparents founded a school for black children there, nearly a century ago. He and his two siblings were often told, "that we were quote 'blessed' and it was our responsibility to give back to those who weren't; to give back to the community," he says. Indeed, while Brooks never worried that about a lack of food, housing or having his lights shut off, he knew friends and family that did. "My mom was just really emphatic in expressing that it was quirk of birth," says Brooks. "And indeed, my father worked very hard," - the elder Brooks was the business manager at the local chamber of commerce - "but a lot of those others fathers were working hard too."

The 42-year-old's commitment to social justice was formed by other experiences as well. "It comes from my own experience of knowing what it feels like to experience racism [and] homophobia; what it feels like to internalize those things," explains Brooks, who is living with HIV. "And how those can translate into risk for HIV infection. And it also comes from knowing the powerful effect of transformation and spiritual healing in my own life and knowing that and wanting to do whatever I can and participate in whatever way I can to help other people see those opportunities for themselves and to see and know the powerful effect of transformation."

Brooks has applied those life lessons in his seven years of work with JRI Health, an organization whose mission - which Brooks reverently recites during a recent interview - is to "pursue social justice through providing underserved individuals and communities with opportunities to develop the tools and skills essential in creating strength, well-being and autonomy. We do this through compassionate support, constant innovation and community leadership." On June 30, Brooks took over as the organization's executive director, replacing Lee Swislow who departed to take the helm of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in April. Brooks, who earned a master's in social work from Boston University, came to the organization first as a social work intern, after which he was hired as the director of the organization's Boston outreach program. He later served as the director of clinical supervision, a position in which he worked closely with the state department of public health's HIV/AIDS Bureau. Prior to taking over as executive director, Brooks served as the organization's director of evaluation and planning.

Now, he aims to increase the visibility of the agency's array of programs and services, which primarily serve people living with or at risk for HIV/AIDS, LGBT youth and adults, at-risk youth and disabled people. "I want people to know who we are and what we do," says Brooks. "And so one of my real focuses is on really introducing us to the community as a whole agency and knowing about all of the work that we do."

While many people are familiar with JRI's Boston GLASS (Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services) and the Sydney Borum, Jr. Health Center, Brooks says the agency's assisted living programs serving people with HIV/AIDS or other disabilities are less well known, as is its Health Law Institute, which provides consumers with legal services. In a follow-up e-mail to Bay Windows Brooks also emphasizes JRI's commitment to fighting the spread of HIV. "Our prevention programs are designed to meet people where they are, helping them to reduce their risk for HIV infection and to believe in the value of their lives," he writes. "We also provide technical assistance, organizational development and education and training to AIDS service organizations and their staffs throughout the Commonwealth."

One of the biggest challenges confronting JRI right now, says Brooks, "is being in a political climate that greatly devalues some human life, even as it espouses the same as being of utmost importance." That translates into funding cuts, which have dogged social service providers locally and nationally, particularly those that attempt to address issues affecting the LGBT community and HIV/AIDS.

Brooks says that overcoming such a challenge requires working cooperatively with other agencies. "We have to do in partnership with government, with faith-based organizations, with communities," he observes. But Brooks is also emphatic that "people who are affected by oppression need to be part of addressing it" - which goes back to JRI's mission of providing people with tools and opportunities to live autonomously. "We need communities and whether that's the GLBT community, whether it's racial and ethnic minorities, whether it's women, substance abusers - whomever - to try to help people find their voices and raise their voices against oppression," says Brooks. "It really is about doing it jointly."

To that end, Brooks says he is pleased with the initiative some LGBT adults have shown in caring for their younger counterparts, a role he has long advocated for the adult LGBT community. In recent months, Brooks notes, Arnold Sapenter and spouse Joseph Reed and Jacquie Bishop and partner Kelley Ready have hosted fundraising house parties in honor of Boston GLASS's 10th anniversary. Here again, however, Brooks stresses that reciprocation is part of the equation. "I think it's important for JRI Health to continue to provide the community with opportunities to support our youth as well as creating a community that's mutually supportive," he explains. "How do we also help our youth feel a sense of responsibility and accountability to the larger GLBT community - to adults, to our seniors? It's not one-sided." While JRI isn't looking to an impose any type of agenda, says Brooks, "we think it's of great value to have our clients feel a sense of belonging and the responsibilities and the rights that come along with that.

"That goes right back to Macon, Georgia," he adds, "when we're blessed it's our responsibility to give back."

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