Miami Herald - March 6, 2005
Jacob Goldstein, jgoldstein@herald.com

Yuri was diagnosed with HIV two years ago, when he was 17. He has a theory for why teenagers tune out warnings about the disease.

'They're sick of hearing the same thing: 'Use a condom, use a condom, use a condom.' "

The numbers bear out his theory -- roughly 30 percent of sexually active high school students in Miami-Dade and Broward counties said they had recently had sex without a condom, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

MEMBER OF P4

Yuri is trying wake them up. Last year he became a founding member of P4 (Positive Peers Promoting Prevention), a group of HIV-positive teens and twentysomethings who speak to high-risk teenagers -- kids in homeless shelters, kids in trouble with drugs and the law -- about the disease.

(Yuri and the other members of the group who spoke with The Herald asked that their last names not be used for this report.)

Stephanie, 23, summarizes her message:

"HIV is trying to break down the door. You turn the lock a little, it's coming in."

As if to demonstrate her point, she raises her chin to reveal a thick, six-inch scar running across her neck -- the legacy of an operation to remove an HIV-induced abcess.

Other members of the group show the pills they have to take. Sometimes it makes the kids take notice.

"You need a face on it," Stephanie said. "If you don't have a real person, it's not going to work."

P4 was founded last year by Alex Moreno, director of adolescent outreach and education at the University of Miami Medical School. It grew out of a peer-education program Moreno started in the late 1990s, when he was teaching at Coral Park High in Southwest Miami.

The program, which was not limited to HIV-positive students, trained high school kids to teach fellow students about HIV. Now there are HIV peer educators at 30 of the county's 36 schools, said Jacquelyn White, the district supervisor for HIV/AIDS. In Broward, a pilot program was launched last year at Blanche Ely High School in Pompano Beach. Administrators hope to expand the program to other schools, said Michael Weissberg, who oversees the district's HIV/AIDS education efforts.

Peer educators speak wherever they can -- in sophomore health classes, at after-school rallies, and in senior classes just before the prom. At Hialeah-Miami Lakes, the peer educators held a rally for Valentine's Day this year. The theme: "Don't let your first love be your last."

A survey underway now will give local administrators a sense of how the program is working. A study published last year by an Emory professor in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that a peer-education program for black teenage girls increased condom use and decreased the likelihood the girls would have sex with new partners.

PEERS ARE BEST

High school students "go to their peers before they go to adults for education," White said. "Those students are more in tune, they're more approachable, they have their finger on the pulse."

Presentations by teenagers who are not only peers but also HIV-positive add a dose of reality.

"It made me realize that people that don't look like they could have it, could have it," said Adam Fundora, a recent high school graduate who heard a presentation from an HIV-positive teenager. "I would never know."

The presentations also help destigmatize people with HIV.

"You let people know you're not going to contaminate them," Yuri says. "You're not a disease. You live with [HIV], but you're a normal person."

Stephanie says she still gets "bad stage fright" sometimes before presentations. Lisa, a 21-year-old member of P4, says good feedback is more common than bad after she gives talks.

"They praise you for what you did," she says. Teenagers tell her they wouldn't have "the guts" to tell a group of people about being HIV-positive.

It can be difficult, Yuri says.

'Every time you tell your story, you realize `Whoa, I'm positive,' " Yuri says. "Sometimes it's too overwhelming."

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