RH/MFW Side by Side Nov 2011

November 2011

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Get Involved. Do something to mark World AIDS Day...and beyond

Over the years, World AIDS Day has become a global phenomenon that has prompted massive media coverage, raised awareness, encouraged people to get involved and helped amplify the voices of those living with HIV/AIDS.

Several area events are scheduled during the day to honor friends we have lost, support those who live with HIV/AIDS, and celebrate the power of community but the day begins with the Annual Stronger Together Breakfast.

Have another engagement, live out of town or simply can't be up in time for the World AIDS Day Breakfast? In lieu of attending the event, we hope you will consider getting involved by sitting at our virtual table and make a gift of any amount you choose that will go towards helping the vulnerable men and women we serve. CLICK HERE to join us at the virtual table.

You can get involved on the day of the event by looking for our eNewsletter, following us on Facebook or by checking our website for uploaded videos of the event.

You won't want to miss keynote speaker Paul Kawata, emcee Amanda Bearse and a special performance sure to get everyone out of their seats!!!

The Shanti Program Training - New Eyes

I found the Shanti program while researching volunteer opportunities online. For years, I'd been interested in volunteering, but had never found the right fit. As soon as I read the description of the Shanti program's goals and purpose, I knew it was for me. Becoming a one-on-one emotional support volunteer for partners living with grief, isolation, illness, depression, or any combination of those issues was a challenge and privilege I knew I wanted to accept. I applied for the volunteer role, and was invited to participate in the two-weekend training session. I had no idea just how significant the training would be to my own self-awareness, my understanding of human relationships, and my ability to connect.

Joining a room of 20 strangers to talk about feelings can be a daunting experience. However, having met with Shanti Program Coordinator Nika and Shanti Program Director Robert during my orientation, I was also thrilled to open myself up to a new perspective. Right from the start, Nika, Robert, and the other program facilitators created a safe, open environment that allowed me to share my honest reactions-as well as my vulnerability-without fear, judgment or recrimination.

One of the most impressive elements of the Shanti training is everyone's willingness to explore their feelings so openly. Having the facilitators there to lead by example, I was able to share emotions and even judgments I'd never known existed. As the training progressed, I also found facilitators' and volunteers' honesty in constructive feedback of my role-playing interactions absolutely invaluable. It was very freeing to speak candidly with people of all backgrounds and forge strong connections with volunteers I otherwise may have never met. I'm really looking forward to meeting in small monthly volunteer support groups, possibly with some of my peers from the same training.

My personal favorite training segment was when currently paired volunteers and partners visited to discuss their relationships and how Shanti has enriched their lives. Those discussions confirmed that the instinct that had guided me to Shanti from the beginning was spot-on. I can't wait to be matched with a Shanti partner!

Another truly amazing element of this program is the organization and stability of the training. Because much of our time is spent delving into deep feelings on sometimes painful and controversial topics, a sense of balance and support is essential-and Shanti facilitators offered that at every step of the way. Every segment includes a section on communicating about a given topic, followed by discussion or exercise regarding personal connection to the topic, and finally a break into small groups to check in on emotional reactions and re-stabilize. The structure of this process was extremely effective and thorough.

I can't emphasize enough what a growth opportunity this training has been for me-I think everyone should be fortunate enough to experience it! I feel ready to be present and available to be a sounding board, support, and listening ear for anyone who needs it-without trying to fix or control. Shanti has helped me learn how to develop skills that have made me a better version of myself, so that I can be there for others.

- Jenny Jackson, A New Shanti Volunteer

30 Strong Events

The whole month of November!

The month of November is winding down and we have had a chance to meet so many new friends through our 30 Strong events!!!

Thank you to everyone who joined in and who is still out there filling donation jars!!!

In case you didn't know - for 30 days in November, Rosehedge/Multifaith Works and a long list of organizations and local businesses markdc the 30th Anniversary of the first AIDS diagnosis with 30-Strong, a series of events culminating in the Stronger Together Breakfast, December 1st.

These community events increased awareness and hopefully inspire many of us to continue the dialogue about HIV/AIDS.

Click here to find out how you can join in.

Tony Radovich honored for his work in HIV prevention

by Shaun Knittel - SGN Associate Editor

Tony Radovich, a community activist who advocates for those living with HIV/AIDS and substance abuse issues, was honored with the Dr. Bob Wood Award for Excellence in HIV Prevention November 15 at a reception in the HIV/AIDS Program Offices.

'Tony has been active in HIV prevention for many years,' read the official announcement. 'He has worked tirelessly as a prevention provider and advocate, and is known for his creativity, perseverance, advocacy, humor, and passion.'

In recent years, Tony has become one of Seattle's most recognizable activists. His work on community projects - mainstream and fringe - is evident by the admiration of his colleagues and fellow activists. Although outspoken, he is a man of not just opinion, but action.

'When I first heard that I was going to be honored, my old pattern of thoughts and behaviors told me I didn't deserve the award,' Tony told Seattle Gay News. 'I spoke to some of my sponsors and mentors, and they said, 'Of course you deserve it.' That allowed me to look within myself a little bit to move past the melancholiness of HIV and the impact of the disease on my community, my life, and the lives of my friends. I am honored and humbled at being recognized by my peers. It's a good thing.'

Tony is a living success story. He's lived with HIV for over a decade and battled substance abuse to come out the other side - perhaps a little bruised, but undefeated.

'It's true; my crystal use was all about me,' wrote Tony on the Strength Over Speed website, a peer-to-peer crystal meth recovery program for Gay men in Seattle. 'Looking back I now see all of the energy I put into accessing that drug and everything that went with it. It allowed me to connect with men on a much more intimate level than I was used to. The reality was that the drug had taken over my life and I wanted my life back.'

Tony is one of the men created for helping to create Strength Over Speed, an organization that is held in high regard.

'To refocus that energy toward something worthwhile has been a struggle,' he said. 'It hasn't been easy. But with fortitude I believe I can accomplish and excel in anything I choose to.'

And he has. Tony has accomplished many things since his dark days and has helped countless others to do the same. 'Being honored in this way just goes to show that one person can have a good impact on their community,' he told SGN.

Tony said that it is his hope that others will see his story and become more involved in the community. 'Just think if we had many people doing little things here and there. Just think of how much good that would bring to the community.'

These days, Tony feels more connected to the LGBT community than ever before. 'I enjoy bringing people together to recognize and look for ways of providing positive messaging,' he said. 'It is very important for us to let each other know that we are good people and that our community is beautiful. We are not bad, disease-infected people. That is a bunch of bullshit and we cannot allow ourselves to internalize those messages that we sometimes hear.'

In fact, important to Tony's continued success are his friends. 'It's nice to be recognized for this award, but I'm only as good as the people I surround myself with,' he admitted. 'There have been a group of Gay men over the course of the last two years that have been responsible for really being there for me whenever I needed them.'

Moving forward, Tony told SGN that advocacy is on 'my front burner these days in regards to proposed cuts on the state level for HIV/AIDS aid.' He says it is important to note that any cut in HIV/AIDS money will have a direct impact on not only people living with HIV but those at risk.

'Infection rates are going up, and that's not a very good thing,' said Tony. 'There is a degree of complacency and I think stigma has a lot to do with that. We need a direct call to action in regards to our individual ability to effect change.'

'I think that messaging and prevention programs need more focus on the areas where they are most needed,' said Tony, pointing out that Pierce, King, and Snohomish counties are along the I-5 corridor, where most of the people with HIV are living. 'Other areas will not have prevention dollars. But that is the times we are living in right now. We've got to talk to state legislators and policy and decision makers about keeping HIV/AIDS prevention programs funded.'

'I don't mind getting other people all riled up,' he said. 'It's good to rally the base.'

When asked to talk about his past struggles, Tony is quick to point out that most people are struggling with something and that, for him, it is important to understand that when being introspective.

'Struggling doesn't necessarily have to be with drugs or HIV,' he said. 'Struggling is people who are out of work. Maybe someone has stress about health care reform. There is a lot of uncertainty out there in the world we currently live in. All of these struggles factor into how young Gay men see themselves. That is when people tend to make decisions that might not be healthy. I would love it if Gay men started talking to each other more when they feel depressed or have issues of substance abuse. It is so important that we communicate.'

'I love my community,' Tony concluded. 'We have some great people in our community in many different capacities and I honor them. I honor those unsung heroes out there & you know who you are.'

The Difference a Hand Makes

The other day I was walking through the Morgan Museum in New York, and there on the wall was a little watercolor. It was the picture of a hand, a left hand, painted, said the card on the wall, by the man whose hand it was, Theodore Gericault, a French artist who died very young, when he was 33.

And when I looked at it and read about how this painting came to be in 1824, I felt a sudden pang for another artist who also died young, who died a very different, much tougher death, in more recent times. He was more or less my age, and I've been thinking about these two artists a little bit too much ever since. The one who died more recently, in 1992, was David Wojnarowicz.

I'd like to start with him.

Thirty years ago David Wojnarowicz was a New York renegade who would steal into abandoned places; his favorites were crumbling wharves along the Hudson River, where he'd paint daring images on cracked, peeling walls. He also made videos, drawings, music. His work was everywhere, he was everywhere, making art, making trouble, making friends, and all the while he was writing one of the bravest, most painful diaries I've ever read.

In the 1980s, he got HIV, then AIDS, and as he died - and he had a slow death - he wrote about what it was like for him, how the sickness crept in and pulled him, thread by thread, from the busy, vital world, until, near the end, he had become an almost vacant space. Of the world, but no longer in it.

He described all this in his diary. The words are hard to read:

    "Sometimes I come to hate people because they can't see where I am. I've gone empty, completely empty and all they see is the visual form; my arms and legs, my face, my height and posture, the sounds that come from my throat. But I'm ... empty. The person I was just one year ago no longer exists; drifts spinning slowly into the ether somewhere way back there...

    ...I am a stranger and I am moving. I am moving on two legs soon to be on all fours. I am no longer animal vegetable or mineral. I am no longer made of circuits or disks. I am no longer coded and deciphered. I am all emptiness and futility. I am an empty stranger, a carbon copy of my form. I can no longer find what I'm looking for outside of myself. It doesn't exist out there. Maybe it's only in here, inside my head. But my head is glass and my eyes have stopped being cameras, the tape has run out and nobody's words can touch me. No gesture can touch me.

    I've been dropped into all this from another world and I can't speak your language any longer. See the signs I try to make with my hands and fingers. See the vague movements of my lips among the sheets. I'm a blank spot in a hectic civilization. I'm a dark smudge in the air that dissipates without notice. I feel like a window, maybe a broken window. I am a glass human. I am a glass human disappearing in rain. I am standing among all of you waving my invisible arms and hands.

    I am shouting my invisible words. I am getting so weary. I am growing tired. I am waving to you here. I am crawling around looking for the aperture of complete and final emptiness. I am vibrating in isolation among you. I am screaming but it comes out like pieces of clear ice. I am signaling that the volume of all this is too high. I am waving. I am waving my hands. I am disappearing. I am disappearing but not fast enough."

David died on July 22, 1992. He was 37.

When Theodore Gericault died, he was only 33. He too had been a troublemaker; his most famous painting describes a scandalous scene at sea when a French captain had abandoned innocent passengers and left them to die on a raft.

Gericault was a horseman, an artistic rebel, a man about town, but after a few too many spills on a few too many horses, he was bedridden, then contracted a wasting disease, probably tuberculosis, the AIDS of that day, and in 1824, we find him stuck in bed, losing breath, unable to get up or around, and the world is receding for him, as it did for Wojnarowicz, but Gericault is luckier. Somehow, he stays attached to what's before him. His eyes don't, as David's did, "stop being cameras."
Theodore Gericault traced his fingers with pencil before painting.

He can still see and appreciate and draw and paint, and in this watercolor, which he literally painted on his deathbed, he extends his hand, places it on a blank page, traces it in pencil. You can see the original pencil marks at the end of some of his fingers, and then, as his last act, with his right hand he draws from the only model left to him, his veined left hand, and very soon after, he dies.

To be at the edge of your time, on the cusp of extinction, and still be working like that? This is a long way from "I am waving. I am waving my hands. I am disappearing". This is pressing your mind against the world and still saying, "Here I am. Here's what I see..."

This is a good ending. David, the unlucky one, lost his attachment, lost connection, and lost his reason to be.

So I stood in the museum, looking at Gericault's hand on the wall, and, not that you can choose these things, I said to myself, when my time comes, may I go like him, with my eyes still in the world, like Gericault, not, please, not like Wojnarowicz.

SASG Tree Lot

Every year, SASG donates Christmas trees from their tree lot to our houses. In appreciation of this generosity, each year we put together at least one team to volunteer to work a shift in their tree lot.

This year is no different. Stephanie, Aleen, Cherie, Corrie, Nika, Elisha and Sean have joined together to form a team that will volunteer on December 5th.
If purchasing a tree this year, consider SASG!

World AIDS Day Worship

Dec 1 | 6:30pm | MIPC Sanctuary

Special guest preacher - Jay bakker (son of tammy faye bakker)

Over the years, World AIDS Day has become a global phenomenon that has prompted massive media coverage, raised awareness, encouraged people to get involved and helped amplify the voices of those living with HIV/AIDS. Every December 1 for the past 23 years, humanity has taken 24 hours to commemorate those who have died, acknowledge those who live and those who fight on the frontlines of the battle against HIV, and ponder what it will take to eliminate the virus once and for all.
CLICK HERE for more information.

URGENT NEED WISH LIST

1. Video Camera
2. Kitchen supplies
3. Wii
4. Tickets to movies, concerts etc.
5. Gift Certificates

Other Housewares and Clothing
Pillows (new)
Twin size "bed in a bag" sets
Twin sheets and pillowcases (100% cotton, new)
Light blankets or comforters
Men's underwear (new, M/L/XL)
Men's white cotton crew-length athletic socks (new)
Coffee maker (6-12 cup size)
Fans (window, box, or oscillating)
Heavy-duty stand mixer (like Kitchen Aid)
Pump air coffee pot
Plates and bowls (microwave and dishwasher safe)
Plastic drinking glasses (commercial type)
Plastic pitchers with lids
Commercial coffee pot
Porch chairs
Cat carrier
Shower curtains (new)
Bath mats (new)

Other Entertainment and Treats
Wii
Computers
Tickets to movies, sporting events, concerts, etc.
DVD movies (new or used)
Telephone calling cards
Art supplies
Prizes for in-house game nights (bags of chips, candy, soda, small gift cards)
Gift certificates (Starbucks, Safeway, Fred Meyer, QFC, Blockbuster Video, Hollywood Video, movie theaters, Trader Joe's)

For more information, or to make a donation, please email or contact us at (206) 324-1520.

WORKPLACE GIVING

Many companies match funds for volunteer hours or employee donations. At a higher level of giving, you can make a bigger difference in the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our community. Take advantage of your employer's matching gift program, and you can automatically double or triple the value of your donation.

Click Here to find out where you can get tested.

UPCOMING EVENTS

CLICK HERE to see all of our videos