AIDS Activists from Haiti Participate in Panel Held at The New School
What: Public panel on post-earthquake AIDS relief efforts in Haiti cosponsored by Housing Works and The New School’s Office of Intercultural Support and Student Health Services
Who: Five Haiti-based AIDS activists affiliated with PHAP+, Haiti’s national grassroots AIDS coalition
Where: Lang Cafe (at The New School), 65 West 11th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues
When: April 1, 2010. Reception, 6pm to 6:30pm; Panel, 6:45pm to 8pm
New Yorkers are invited to hear first-hand accounts of disaster-relief efforts in Haiti, in particular the urgent challenges facing AIDS groups, at the “Keith D. Cylar Activist Awards and Panel: Addressing AIDS in Haiti After the Earthquake.” The public panel and discussion featuring five Haiti-based AIDS activists takes place at the New School on April 1 from 6pm to 8pm. The panel is cosponsored by Housing Works and The New School’s Office of Intercultural Support and Student Health Services.
The activist panelists represent AIDS groups affiliated with PHAP+, a coalition of community-based AIDS organizations in Haiti. They are in New York to attend a U.N. meeting on the future of Haiti and spread the word that two months after the earthquake, the United Nations and the U.S. still have no plan for providing emergency relief or a long-term plan for the approximately 120,000 Haitians living with AIDS.
One of the panelists is Esther Boucicault, Haiti’s best-known AIDS activist. The president of PHAP+ and founder of the AIDS organization FEBS, Boucicault was the first person in Haiti to publicly discuss living with the disease.
“UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon visited Haiti last week but didn’t mention AIDS—it is no surprise, that more than two months after the earthquake, we are still waiting for UN and local partners to deliver their plan for combating AIDS after the earthquake,” said Boucicault.
The majority of AIDS treatment facilities and clinics in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Leogane and Petit Goâve were destroyed in the earthquake. The lack of stable shelter and food sources, both integral to AIDS treatment and care, threaten to exacerbate the country’s AIDS epidemic.
The other activists participating in the panel are:
Liony Accelus, President of REHPIVIIH
Edner Boucicaut, Chief Communications Officer for CECOSIDA
Steve Laguerre, Executive Director of SeroVie
Erick Louis, General Coordinator for GIPA
Since the January 12 earthquake, PHAP+ has spearheaded efforts to open two new HIV clinics, one in Port-au-Prince and the other in St.-Marc, where tens of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents have fled. PHAP+ has also lent significant support to a family clinic in Port-au-Prince sponsored by the Brooklyn-based Haitian group Diaspora. Learn more about Housing Works’ collaboration with PHAP+ and how you can help.
At the panel discussion, Housing Works will bestow its annual Keith D. Cylar International AIDS Activist Award to PHAP+ and Virginia Shubert Courage Award to Edner Boucicaut. PHAP+ is being recognized for its work opening and supporting the aforementioned clinics. The award being given to Edner Boucicaut recognizes the work of a non-HIV-positive activist. Boucicaut has played an integral role in helping PHAP+ organize, both pre-and post-earthquake.
Posted on April 2, 2010 at 6:47 am
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