AIDS Issues Update: Features:
Haitians with HIV Fight for Increase in PEPFAR Funding
The Haitian delegation and advocates go to Washington
Thanks to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and other international funding, most Haitians with AIDS who seek care receive early forms of antiretroviral medication. But that’s not enough. Many Haitians don’t have water to take their medications. Or even homes to live in. So the Haitian AIDS group Fondation Esther Boucicault-Stanislas (FEBS) visited D.C. earlier this month to tell Congress and the State Department to provide full funding for PEPFAR and include newer, stronger medication and supportive services such as food and shelter and support for people whose family and communities have abandoned them because they have HIV or AIDS.
The delegation worked hard to convince Global AIDS Coordinator Dr. Eric Goosby and Congress to push President Obama to increase funding for PEPFAR by $7 billion and the Global fund by $2 billion in order to expand supportive services. Haiti was one of the first countries hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and 2.2 percent of citizens are infected. Eighty percent of Haitians live in poverty.
“There are a lot of girls 11, 12, 13 years old out there prostituting themselves. They lives in houses that are shacks,” said Norvelia Passeus, who lives in St. Marc, Haiti. Passeus has struggled since she was diagnosed with HIV five years ago. Passeus, a former school teacher, was fired when her principal found out she had HIV. She became a client with FEBS and now works there as a volunteer.
Passeus was part of a delegation of nine Haitians, American advocates and a Creole translator who visited key members of Congress and Global AIDS Coordinator Dr. Eric Goosby to talk about their problems in St. Marc, a coastal port town in Haiti. In addition to meeting with Goosby, the activists met with staffers from the offices of Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN); Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ); Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI);Sen. John Kerry (D-MA); House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); Mel Martinez (R-FL); Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL); Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA); Rep. Ileana Ross Lehtinen (R-FL) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA). The trip was organized by Housing Works and Health GAP.
An understanding of Haiti’s problems
The visits were powerful, with staffers moved by the stories by the Haitians. In one visit Esther Boucicault, FEBS founder, broke down and started to cry talking about the experience of people coming to her clinic. “They come to me and say ‘I don’t have access to food. I don’t have access to second line treatment.’ But I can’t do anything about that.”
The advocates were particularly impressed by Goosby’s interest at their meeting with him.
“Dr. Goosby is very committed to expanding out the model of PEPFAR to supportive services,” said Health GAP Director of U.S. Policy Matthew Kavanagh, who attended the lobby visits. “As a doctor, he understands why second line treatment works. But he has a major mandate without any new money.”
“My best moment was meeting with Dr. Goosby. He guaranteed that he’d be helping Haiti,” said Emmanuel Merilien, who attended the meetings. Merilien is the first publicly openly gay HIV-positive person living in Haiti. Last month he was kicked out of his parents’ home for having HIV/AIDS, but he has found support through FEBS.
At the Equality to End AIDS Rally and Vigil Merilien issued a stirring speech in his native Creole, that was translated for the audience. “With courage, we can overcome the barriers which prevent us from creating opportunities for those the who are infected and or affected by the HIV/AIDS. I am a young gay man living with HIV in a society that offers no opportunity whatsoever to people like me,” Merilien said. “We are completely marginalized. We are not entitled to a decent housing, to education, to jobs, or to health-care. Instead, stigma and discrimination trap us behind walls of silence. We need courage to break our silence.”
Your inside source for in-depth activism news is updated daily by Staff Writer, Diana Scholl.
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