The Chaos Within - Time to Deliver
I am in Calgary.
The conference in Toronto is over. I am here to meet with Rachel Parker, DISHA volunteer and friend who came to us through the girl guide centre SANGAM in Pune. Rachel's parents also operate the Parker Oak Fund that have funded the DISHA and Sahara Aalhad projects and the Parker Oak Fund helped fund my airfare for the conference. Also here is Laine Racher, DISHA volunteer who helped fund the rest of the airfare. It was so good to see them both again.
The theme of the conference was time to deliver... enough talk, it is time for action... I learnt a lot at this conference. The approach to HIV/AIDS in Tadiwala Road and Pune will not be the same as a result and Dr. Jasmine from Project Concern International that met up with me in Toronto agrees. We can do so much more!
This is one 'positive' from this conference.
Another 'positive' was the opportunity to network and learn from other grassroots intervention projects in India and around the world. Tini, my Malaysian transgender friend who is the Asia Pacific coordinator for Asia Pacific Network of Sexworkers (APSNW) is a case in point. She will be in Delhi next month and we hope to coordinate a visit to Pune.
This should be interesting for Deep Griha! We cannot ignore the transgender community amongst us. Sahara Delhi has shown us that the HIV prevalence rate in the TG community is 45%. They must be included. Heterosexual males continue to have unprotected sex with the TG sex workers and while society would rather ignore this and pretend it does not happen, it does!
Tini will prove to be the antithesis to the perception of the TG community in India... perceptions that are shared by many at Deep Griha Society. I have no doubt that if we allow for it, she will help us at Deep Griha approach this issue sensitively.
The conference was also frustrating.
As you may have gathered from my previous blogs, there exists a gap between the research and the the implementation on the ground, and this needs to be addressed. Again, with a HIV/AIDS coalition in the city we can hopefully use the research that is being done to form the basis of the interventions that are required both at community level and in the city.
Finally... I wore my HIV Positive T-shirt at the conference. This t-shirt supports the campaign that is supported by Nelson Mandela. Very simply 'HIV Positive' is emblazoned across the front. During the conference no one gave us a second look... but yesterday, Saturday morning with the conference over, as I walked down the same route I had done for a week I kept getting these looks that possibly amounted to: 'The conference is over. Why the fuck are you still here.'
I say possibly, because I could not be certain, just felt like it.
Then I got to Calgary...
The girls that I spent the evening with were a little concerned about the t-shirt... its a redneck city, how will people react etc. I immediately offered to change. They said no.
The taxi arrived to take us to a club.
The driver saw me and said, "I will take everyone except the guy who is HIV+."
The girls were mortified. I smiled. Time to Deliver...
The driver was a Pakistani doctor waiting on his licence to practive and his excuse for turning me down was... "I'm a doctor and I know about these things."
I changed my t-shirt, amidst protests - I have experienced enough discrimination to choose the battles I fight - got back to the cab and asked him if he minded me sitting next to him. The girls had already ripped him apart really, so he was quite apolegetic. I then engaged with him. He spoke about how he was stigmatised against as a doctor from Pakistan and how he had been reduced to driving a cab because his qualifications weren't good enough, although he knew so much about medicine etc... I then asked him how he felt... and he saw where I was going. We had a good chat for the 15 minute drive or so... and he shook my hand as I got down...
Time to deliver... who is going to deliver?
The Bill Gates and Bill Clintons of this world or the Neelas and Nevilles, the Tinis and Shantanus, the Latas and Mayas, the Avinashes and Meeras, the Pauls and Meetas?
Whose responsibility is it not to stigmatise against an HIV+ person?
Whose responsibility is it to hold local and national governments accountable for how they approach issues like HIV/AIDS and poverty and gender violence?
Whose responsibility is it to support the work on the ground with more than platitudes and empty words?
Go look in a mirror...
The conference in Toronto is over. I am here to meet with Rachel Parker, DISHA volunteer and friend who came to us through the girl guide centre SANGAM in Pune. Rachel's parents also operate the Parker Oak Fund that have funded the DISHA and Sahara Aalhad projects and the Parker Oak Fund helped fund my airfare for the conference. Also here is Laine Racher, DISHA volunteer who helped fund the rest of the airfare. It was so good to see them both again.
The theme of the conference was time to deliver... enough talk, it is time for action... I learnt a lot at this conference. The approach to HIV/AIDS in Tadiwala Road and Pune will not be the same as a result and Dr. Jasmine from Project Concern International that met up with me in Toronto agrees. We can do so much more!
This is one 'positive' from this conference.
Another 'positive' was the opportunity to network and learn from other grassroots intervention projects in India and around the world. Tini, my Malaysian transgender friend who is the Asia Pacific coordinator for Asia Pacific Network of Sexworkers (APSNW) is a case in point. She will be in Delhi next month and we hope to coordinate a visit to Pune.
This should be interesting for Deep Griha! We cannot ignore the transgender community amongst us. Sahara Delhi has shown us that the HIV prevalence rate in the TG community is 45%. They must be included. Heterosexual males continue to have unprotected sex with the TG sex workers and while society would rather ignore this and pretend it does not happen, it does!
Tini will prove to be the antithesis to the perception of the TG community in India... perceptions that are shared by many at Deep Griha Society. I have no doubt that if we allow for it, she will help us at Deep Griha approach this issue sensitively.
The conference was also frustrating.
As you may have gathered from my previous blogs, there exists a gap between the research and the the implementation on the ground, and this needs to be addressed. Again, with a HIV/AIDS coalition in the city we can hopefully use the research that is being done to form the basis of the interventions that are required both at community level and in the city.
Finally... I wore my HIV Positive T-shirt at the conference. This t-shirt supports the campaign that is supported by Nelson Mandela. Very simply 'HIV Positive' is emblazoned across the front. During the conference no one gave us a second look... but yesterday, Saturday morning with the conference over, as I walked down the same route I had done for a week I kept getting these looks that possibly amounted to: 'The conference is over. Why the fuck are you still here.'
I say possibly, because I could not be certain, just felt like it.
Then I got to Calgary...
The girls that I spent the evening with were a little concerned about the t-shirt... its a redneck city, how will people react etc. I immediately offered to change. They said no.
The taxi arrived to take us to a club.
The driver saw me and said, "I will take everyone except the guy who is HIV+."
The girls were mortified. I smiled. Time to Deliver...
The driver was a Pakistani doctor waiting on his licence to practive and his excuse for turning me down was... "I'm a doctor and I know about these things."
I changed my t-shirt, amidst protests - I have experienced enough discrimination to choose the battles I fight - got back to the cab and asked him if he minded me sitting next to him. The girls had already ripped him apart really, so he was quite apolegetic. I then engaged with him. He spoke about how he was stigmatised against as a doctor from Pakistan and how he had been reduced to driving a cab because his qualifications weren't good enough, although he knew so much about medicine etc... I then asked him how he felt... and he saw where I was going. We had a good chat for the 15 minute drive or so... and he shook my hand as I got down...
Time to deliver... who is going to deliver?
The Bill Gates and Bill Clintons of this world or the Neelas and Nevilles, the Tinis and Shantanus, the Latas and Mayas, the Avinashes and Meeras, the Pauls and Meetas?
Whose responsibility is it not to stigmatise against an HIV+ person?
Whose responsibility is it to hold local and national governments accountable for how they approach issues like HIV/AIDS and poverty and gender violence?
Whose responsibility is it to support the work on the ground with more than platitudes and empty words?
Go look in a mirror...
posted by Deep Griha at 10:26 am
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