Miami Herald - February 20, 2005
Mamie Ward, mward@herald.com

The target audience: African-American communities that have high rates of HIV/AIDS.

Such Organizations as Empower U, a nonprofit group that provides HIV testing, counseling, care and prevention in South Florida's poorest communities do their part to spread the word.

Empower U took the lead in hosting "HIV/AIDS: Expression Through the Arts" on Feb. 7 at the Joseph Caleb Center auditorium in Liberty City. The event brought together local artists of all ages to raise HIV awareness.

"I've never been to a function like this," said Paul Williams, 36, who has been living with the virus for nine months. "It's an inspiration, and I think it will help a lot."

Empower U's founder, Vanessa Mills, was diagnosed with HIV in 1991. Fighting the disease has a lot to do with cultural stigmas, she said.

"In order to combat HIV/AIDS in the African-American community, we need to go way back and address a culture," Mills said. " We need to stop the secrecy and seek medical care. People who are infected need to begin to talk."

The gathering marked National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, observed in cities with the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS cases, such as Miami, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Oakland, Philadelphia, Trenton, Raleigh-Durham, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics show that since 1994 African Americans have had the lowest AIDS survival rates of all racial and ethnic groups, with 55 percent surviving after nine years, compared to 61 percent for Hispanics, 64 percent for whites and 69 percent for Asian/Pacific Islanders.

Such statistics have kept community organizations in Miami-Dade determined to continue the fight against the disease.

Nearly 250 people filled the Joseph Caleb Center auditorium to share laughs, heartfelt poems and creative songs and hear the message: "Get Tested, Get Educated and Get Involved" about AIDS/HIV.

"We have to take the stigma out of it," said Metris Batts, a member of the planning committee for the event. "We will talk about diabetes but we won't discuss HIV. . . . We still won't talk about it in church."

Teresa "Lady T" Poulos, a comedian who has performed on BET's Comic View, and in several movies, used her talent to bring out laughter while bringing to the fore the realities of a serious subject.

"I like lending my name to functions such as this because, without awareness, people sleep on AIDS," Poulos said. "People think that it's OK -- but we need information."

She conceded that trying to spark laughter humor out of something as serious as HIV/AIDS was a challenge for her.

'I prayed and felt that as long as the audience said something at the end of the show, like, 'She was funny, but she was right,' then that's good," she said.

The most recent Miami-Dade Health Department HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report (December 2004) showed there are 27,976 cumulative cases of AIDS in the county, with 51 percent of the cumulative cases and 52 percent of the reported HIV cases being among African Americans and other blacks. The highest concentration of the disease is in Miami and its surrounding areas.

The city of Miami grasped a foothold in the awareness campaign by teaming up with the Jefferson Reeves Clinic, volunteers and local students to recognize National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness day.

They distributed information featured on pamphlets and fliers about the epidemic and testing locations in the area.

Young people in the community have also become active in the overall campaign. High school students from Miami Central have been promoting awareness among their peers.

"We've been doing this for four years," said Rodney Pierre, 18, a peer educator at the school.

Pierre and four other students regularly perform hip-hop songs that address HIV/AIDS to spread the message to fellow students. They are members of the more than 500 student peer educators in the Miami-Dade school district and they performed at the Joseph Caleb Center Auditorium as part of the Empower U event.

"The students like to hear from us," said Pierre.

The five performers will take part in the "We're Number One Campaign" kickoff at Miami Central High on Wednesday to push for an HIV/AIDS clinic there.

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