AEGiS-BAYW: AIDS advocate with local roots wins leadership grant

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

AIDS advocate with local roots wins leadership grant

Bay Windows - April 3, 2008
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com

The John M. Lloyd Foundation presented its first AIDS Leadership Award, a $100,000 grant, to Gregg Gonsalves this week. The award honors unsung heroes in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Gonsalves, who currently coordinates regional AIDS and tuberculosis treatment literacy and advocacy programs for the AIDS and Rights Alliance of Southern Africa, first got his start in AIDS advocacy in Boston back in the mid-80s as a member of the Boston chapter of ACT UP. He said he plans to save the grant to ensure that he can continue to afford to work on HIV/AIDS activism in the non-profit sector.

Gonsalves said he first got involved in ACT UP in Boston when he began dating a man who was HIV positive, and he was desperate to find out information about treatment options. He began working with ACT UP's treatment committee, but at the time the outlook for people living with HIV was bleak, and the only available treatments were designed to combat opportunistic infections, not to attack the virus.

"It wasn't a very hopeful time. ... People were trying to find what clinical trials were going on, trying to bring down the prices of some of the opportunistic infection drugs," said Gonsalves.

After a decade in Boston Gonsalves moved to New York in the early '90s, working in a lab at Columbia University by day and volunteering with ACT UP in New York at night. From there he went on to co-found the advocacy think tank Treatment Advocacy Group and, in 2000, to become the director of Gay Men's Health Crisis' (GMHC) treatment and prevention advocacy programs. While working for GMHC he made his first trip to South Africa, and was shocked at the sheer numbers of people dying and the extent of the need for treatment. In 2006 he left GMHC and relocated to Cape Town to work for the AIDS and Rights Alliance of Southern Africa.

Gonsalves said that despite shifting his focus from working with gay men in the United States to working in South Africa, he sees his nearly two decades of AIDS activism as being linked by the common goal of helping connect people to treatment and services.

"I've always worked on access to AIDS treatment. I've always wanted to figure out how people could stay alive with HIV," said Gonsalves.

080403
BY080402

AEGiS is a 501(c)3, not-for-profit, tax-exempt, educational corporation. AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted funding from Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Elton John AIDS Foundation, National Library of Medicine, Pacific Life Foundation, and donations from users like you.

Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2008. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 2008. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .