San Francisco Chronicle - November 26, 2004
Carolyn Jones at carolynjones@sfchronicle.com

Hope's Voice reaches out to young adults -- 20,000 of whom were diagnosed with HIV last year in the United States, making up half of the country's new cases.

Young adults, ages 15-25, desperately need to be educated about AIDS, and few programs are designed specifically for them, said Hope's Voice executive director, Todd Murray, who is 23 and HIV positive.

"This generation didn't go through the '80s," he said. "They didn't see the face of the epidemic. They didn't see the face-to-face panic that was in this city 20 years ago."

Hope's Voice provides a Web site and sends young HIV-positive speakers to talk to school groups and conferences. The point, Murray said, is for young people to see that HIV can hit anyone, even people their own age.

"We tell people that if they have a stereotype about HIV, they need to start over," Murray said. Hope's Voice started last spring when Murray met public health activist Danielle Rivera, also 23, at an AIDS conference in Oregon. They both felt that not enough AIDS education programs were aimed at young adults. Murray, who was diagnosed with HIV at age 20, already had enormous success with another group he started, Positive Hope, an international network for young adults already diagnosed with HIV. Positive Hope now has members in 42 states and 24 countries.

Murray wants Hope's Voice to go one step further and reach all young adults, infected or not. Speakers emphasize abstinence, safe sex, AIDS education and activism in general, in hopes of reducing HIV levels in the younger population.

Rivera and Murray are busy finding grants and volunteers for the group, and hope to soon have a board of directors and to establish nonprofit status. So far, Hope's Voice has four speakers, including Murray, all of whom have long resumes of AIDS-related speaking engagements.

Rivera said that even she had an abstract view of AIDS until recently.

"I always knew it existed, but even after learning about sexual health and such, I never had a personal connection," she said.

"I'm negative and a straight woman, but this is a disease that affects everyone," she said. "I don't think anyone should lose their best friend over something that is so preventable."

One of the group's speakers is Lesley P. Williams, a 25-year-old single mother of three boys who was diagnosed with HIV when she was 16.

Williams, who lives in Houston, believes strongly that people with HIV need to speak out.

"Because of the stigma involved, the fear of being alone or rejected or ridiculed, a lot of HIV-positive people don't say anything," she said.

Williams, who works full time at an AIDS funding agency and attends college part-time, said she doesn't have much time "for BS."

"I tell people, 'Look, life is what you make it. Abstinence is a beautiful thing but usually it's not the reality, and young people need to use condoms, get tested, talk to their doctors, get educated,"' she said.

As for her own kids, who are HIV-negative, Williams has been honest and up front.

"I tell them not to be afraid, that we're all going to die someday. Dying is natural, just that some people die sooner than others," she said. "It's how we live our life that matters." Where to go

For more information, visit www.hopesvoice.com or call (415) 552-4677.

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