Miami Herald - Sunday, August 26, 2001
Carolina Bolado, Herald Writer

Eight months and many phone calls later, Gertrude Pearl has assembled a panel of speakers for an HIV-AIDS forum Sept. 14 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Miami, 7701 SW 76th Ave.

The program will feature keynote speaker Dr. Naomi Nhiwatiwa, the recently retired senior advisor to the United Nations for the World Health Organization's Africa region.

Nhiwatiwa has also worked as an officer for UNICEF's Eastern and Southern Africa region and was a member of Zimbabwe's parliament in the 1980s.

The three-member panel is rounded out with two doctors from the University of Miami -- Dr. Gwendolyn Scott, director of pediatrics; and Dr. Lawrence Friedman of adolescent medicine.

Pearl is the coordinator and spokeswoman for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation's Herrschaft Lecture and Cultural Committee, which sponsors forums and lecture series on topics of community interest.

"I had attended the Memorial Quilt exhibit in December of last year, and when I walked out, I was so moved by it that I said to myself, `I've got to do something,' " Pearl said.

After getting approval from the committee for an AIDS forum, Pearl went about developing a panel of speakers and contacting local organizations involved with the disease.

"I'm going to request that people identify themselves with their organizations in order to establish a network," Pearl said. "I really had no idea there were so many groups in Dade County. There should be a coalition; it's the only way to spread the message."

And it is no wonder that so many local organizations are participating in the fight against AIDS.

According to AIDS Net, the Miami-Dade HIV-AIDS partnership, about 30,000 people in the county are HIV positive or have AIDS.

This makes up 40 percent of Florida's HIV-AIDS cases, despite that only 14 percent of the state's population lives in Miami-Dade.

Friedman, who runs a clinic for teens with HIV-AIDS at Jackson Memorial Hospital, says that the fastest growing HIV-infected population is made up of young people in their 20s, many of whom were infected in their teens but weren't diagnosed or didn't show signs of infection until later on.

"People are more accepting of the diagnosis in society so the stigma isn't as great," Friedman said. "But that might cause some complacency among youth who don't have the memory of the devastation that AIDS has caused among different populations."

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