Miami Herald - Sunday, July 29, 2001
Christine Morris

Then the struggling community groups, churches, educators and service providers would get more of the money they need to finally start realizing victories against the killer stalking South Florida's communities of color in disproportionately high numbers.

"Without more funding, our generation of future leaders will become a generation of HIV statistics," LaShaun Polk, HIV/AIDS supervisor for Miami-Dade public schools, told the members of Congress, county commissioners, mayors and health officials gathered in front of more than 950 people at the James L. Knight Center. "We need a commitment."

Young people who are enlisted in the war against new infection echoed her call.

LONG WAY TO GO

"I'm convinced I have saved lives," said Chakevia Lewis, an HIV peer educator who just graduated from Miami Carol City High. "But we need funding to help empower the community, to spread awareness. We were only able to go the inch, not the mile."

Anastasia Apa, a 20-year-old student at Miami-Dade Community College, brought down the house with her call for revolutionizing the way young people learn about AIDS.

"We have to show them they are not invincible," she said. "Scare them safe.

"Let's make it cool to talk about AIDS, let's give them pencils, notebooks, stickers on their lockers," she urged. "We need to make our youth aware that they, too, are warriors in this fight."

State Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Miami Democrat, told of conversations in which she has urged teachers to use the district's AIDS curriculum. They say they don't have time because they are busy preparing students for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and other standardized tests.

PRIORITIES TEST

"If you don't teach it," Wilson tells them, "there won't be anybody here to take the FCAT."

Blacks accounted for nearly six of every 10 new cases of HIV infection in Florida in the past four years.

In Miami-Dade, Hispanics have 30 percent of HIV infections. U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, who organized the summit, vowed to turn the day's testimony into a strategy for increasing the influence of community-based organizations, adding significant resources to the AIDS battle and holding public officials at all levels responsible for fighting the epidemic.

A recurring theme was the failure of government agencies to provide adequate housing, medical care and other services to people with AIDS. Miami stopped accepting new applicants for housing assistance, said Joni Jones Harris, assistant director of community development, because of the "large amount of unmet need and frustration."

CALL TO OFFICIALS

People living with the disease demanded that the public officials include their voices in all decisions about AIDS funding and services, which they described as tragically insufficient.

"Once you get their ear, you must teach people to become independent instead of dependent on a system that ultimately will fail them," Petra Johnson-Hobson of Florida AIDS Action said to cheers and applause.

People are living longer with the disease, placing additional strains on social services.

"Today's summit needs to send a strong message that we need increases in funding this year," said David Harvey of the AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth and Families in Washington.

The elected representatives promised to take action.

"This is not a partisan issue," Wilson said, inviting Republican Rep. Marco Rubio to stand beside her on stage. "You will see the Hispanic caucus and the black caucus joining hands to fight HIV and AIDS."

She grabbed Rubio's hand and lifted it high.

POWER IN UNITY

"We know what we can't do divided," Rubio said. "Now let's see what we can do united."

Former state Rep. Elaine Bloom, now a candidate for mayor of Miami Beach, said that in a few short years, legislators have gone from not wanting to talk about the epidemic to realizing that "AIDS is everybody's business."

"Out of the fear and out of the apathy was born a stigma," said the Rev. W.J. Bailey, president of Florida HIV Ministries. "It is time to mass-educate the public" in ways tailored to individual communities.

"We cannot take what worked in San Francisco and bring it to Liberty City and Overtown," Bailey said. "How dare I go tell the Hispanic culture what they need to do?"

Maggy DeArmas, attending the summit on her own time, is fighting HIV and AIDS in the Hispanic community every day. A counselor for Camillus Health Concern, she is pushing for public service announcements on television and radio aimed specifically at Hispanics.

"There is so much ignorance in our communities toward sexually transmitted diseases," DeArmas said. "A lot of shame comes with it in the Latin community.

"The only way we can fight the monster is through knowledge."

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