Transdiaspora Network’s Newsletter
Transdiaspora Network Newsletter

Issue XII – November 2009

As another year draws to a close, we have time to reflect on all the developments that have transpired in our world, in our nation, and most importantly, right here in our own communities. This past year has been one of great change and real hope. Scientists have made promising strides towards the development of an effective AIDS vaccine. We swore in our first African-American President. And at Transdiaspora Network, we have helped change the lives of a few teenagers right here in Brooklyn. While some may look at this last accomplishment as small potatoes, to TDN grads like Brandon, Shanhai, Gena, Christal, Liza, and Niambi, the change we have enabled them to make in their own lives has been anything but small. It is everything. It is the world.

We want nothing more than to continue changing our world, one person at a time, but in order to do so, we desperately need your support. Since our inception, we have been showered with praise from everyone, from politicians to prevention experts to our very own participants, for our cutting-edge approach and staggering results. And while we appreciate all the recognition, we continue to struggle to fund our direct programming. Even modest donations of $10, $25, or $50 have a huge impact on small community based organizations like TDN. So as the holiday season approaches, please take a moment to reflect on the past but, more importantly, look to the future.

Please click here to make a tax deductible donation to directly support our youth programs.

Thank you and Happy Holidays!

Susan Wile Schwarz, MPH
Communications & Research Director

ANNOUNCEMENTS

“Pirate of the Caribbean” Reports on TDN Halloween Carnival
By Sophie Cardona, TDN Treasurer

We are happy to report that Transdiaspora Network’s fall fundraiser, a colorful Halloween Carnival bash, was a great success in spite of stiff competition from the World Series and a host of other celebrations around the city. A festive crowd turned out to support our preventive mission and enjoy an upbeat evening filled with performances, prizes, and dangerously delicious concoctions courtesy of LeBlon Cachaca.

The Capoeira group Motumbaxe! didn’t disappoint with its powerful performance of the Brazilian martial artform, infusing the evening with an electric vibe, and the percussion band Bloco Quibombo got hips and feet moving with their contagious drums and throbbing beats.

The costume contest also drew lots of laughter and applause, pitting Wonder Woman against John Travolta, Pocahontas against Little Red Riding Hood, all in good spirit of course. We wish to thank everyone who participated in making this evening so special by coming out in the middle of the week to support TDN’s work – our wonderful performers, DJ Mousky who spun samba, funk, reggae, house, and merengue all night, as well as our hosts at Boucarou Lounge and all the generous businesses who donated items for our raffle.

Everyone’s contribution of time, energy, ideas, and smiles made this an event to remember. Make sure you check out our pictures!

AIDS Vaccine Shows Promises for the First Time
In late September, doctors reported that a new AIDS vaccine had shown some success for the first time, protecting a significant minority of humans against the disease. The results of a six-year clinical trial in Thailand involving over 16,000 participants, showed that participants receiving the vaccine became infected at a rate one-third lower than those who had not received the vaccine. While this study is the most promising development in the search for an effective AIDS vaccine, significant questions remain for scientists to answer, including why those who were infected despite vaccination had as much virus in their blood as those who became infected without. “I don’t want to use a word like ‘breakthrough,’ but I don’t think there’s any doubt that this is a very important result,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is one of the trial’s backers.

“For more than 20 years now, vaccine trials have essentially been failures,” Dr. Fauci said. “Now it’s like we were groping down an unlit path, and a door has been opened. We can start asking some very important questions.”

Help Develop the National AIDS Strategy
Over the past month, young people across the country have helped shape a new National AIDS Strategy. The White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) has been meeting with community members in nine cities to get their input, with four more meetings still to come.

Whether or not you plan to attend one of the officials HIV/AIDS Town Hall Meetings, you can make your voice heard and help shape the future of HIV and AIDS policy in America. You may submit your comments and recommendations online through a form on the ONAP website or upload a document that you have created through November 26.

In 2004, young people ages 13-24 in the United States made up 13% of new HIV infections. It’s vital that the National AIDS Strategy meets the needs of this group.

The HIV/AIDS Town Hall Meeting for New York is scheduled for December 4.

If you need help compiling suggestions, Advocates for Youth has put together a list of policy recommendations that you can use as a starting point.

TDN Welcomes FEGS Interns
This winter, Transdiaspora Network has formalized a partnership with FEGS Health and Human Services System that will provide internships to several students enrolled in its Education and Youth program. The FEGS program collaborates with the Department of Education to provide employment and career training to overage and under-credited students at risk of dropping out of high school.

TDN will provide interns the opportunity to perform as local health news reporters while gaining community leadership skills through enrollment in our regular programming cycles: Train-the-Trainer program and Carib Youth Society. The interns will be responsible for reporting on local TDN-relevant news; contacting Brooklyn-based hospitals, clinics, health centers, and community-based organizations to gather information about preventive programs; and writing, editing, and presenting health-related local stories in this bi-monthly newsletter. FEGS Health and Human Services System is one of New York City’s largest health-related social services organizations. The purpose of the program is to provide internship opportunities for youth that enable them to develop their career interests and goals in a professional work setting.

New Search Engine Helps You Support TDN While You Search, Shop
Thanks to GoodSearch and GoodShop, Transdiaspora Network can now earn a donation through Internet searches and purchases from friends like you. GoodSearch is a new Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo, and support our mission through the click of your mouse. GoodShop is a new online shopping mall that donates up to 30% of each purchase to your designated cause. Hundreds of stores including Amazon, Target, Gap, Best Buy, eBay, Macy’s and Barnes & Noble have already signed on to participate.

Additionally, if you download the GoodSearch – Transdiaspora Network toolbar, TDN will earn money every time you shop and search online – even if you using GoodShop or GoodSearch first. Click here to add the Transdiaspora Network toolbar.

New Development Team Joins TDN

Transdiaspora Network has invited four new team members, Holly Benavides, Kyrie Kowalik, Vui Ung, and Emilie Traub, to work with us as part of our new development team. The team will be responsible for identifying and accessing resources through individual, organizational, and corporate giving as well as pursuing grant opportunities. Thanks to these important new additions, we will not only be able to enhance our existing youth programming but actually grow and create greater opportunities for more and more at-risk youth in our communities.

Join TDN for Day of Activism on World AIDS Day
On December 1 from 1PM to 4PM, Transdiaspora Network will join with Dwa Fanm at the Brooklyn Public Library Pacific Branch (25 Fourth Ave.) to commemorate World AIDS Day as part of Dwa Fanm’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. The event will feature a guest speaker talking about HIV/AIDS and its impact on women and youth.

Dwa Fanm (“Women’s Rights” in Haitian Creole) is a human rights organization committed to empowering all women and girls with the freedom to define and control their own lives. Through service, education, advocacy and grassroots programs, Dwa Fanm works to end discrimination, violence, and other forms of injustice here in New York and abroad.

Social Attitudes Survey Participants Needed
Research shows that your personal identity affects your attitudes and social behaviors. Counseling, a field that explores personal identity and is also connected to storytelling, can be an effective way to “Talk Things Out.” Currently, most literature and research miss the unique cultural experiences of people from the Caribbean and of Caribbean descent, especially the youth. Yet, for persons of Caribbean descent, experiences with identity development within the United States can feel different from those who may look like them, but have a different social background. The impact this difference may have on self-awareness of one’s body, body image, and relationships is important for the implementation of an effective HIV prevention strategy.

Our goal at Transdiaspora Network is to find different venues to promote health and responsible choices with your body and to pass the word along through culturally relevant community initiative. What better way to start than to learn more about how you see yourself?

Supporting counseling research can do this. So please log on and participate in this important research because you have much to say and the world has much to know. Want to know more about this research initiative? You can email sph2008@columbia.edu.

Click here to participate.

Crown Heights Group Reaches Out to Disconnected Youth
A new coalition of Crown Heights community members, organizations, and leaders formed to increase youth engagement in the Crown Heights community. Organized by Assemblyman Karim Camara and Council Member Letitia James, the “I am C.H.A.N.G.E.” (Crown Heights Area Next Generation’s Empowerment) group targets disconnected youth, which they have defined as people ages 16-24 who are both out of school and out of work. With this demographic in mind, the coalition will plan a series of events to reach out to this group, encouraging them to build relationships and connect with the resources available to them in the community. The first of these events will be a youth town hall meeting on gun violence, which will give young people a chance to speak out about issues that are relevant to them.

The town hall will be held during the first week of December at Marcus Garvey Nursing Home. Call the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center at (718) 773-6886 for more information or to get involved. See pictures of the first meeting here.

Caribbean Sees Drop in HIV/AIDS Cases, Deaths
The number of infected people in the Caribbean is on the decline. The drop is credited to a massive public education campaign and increased condom usage. A similar decline in AIDS-related deaths is thought to be a result of improved access to care and treatment. Despite this heartening news, “the figures are still very high for such a small region,” said Carl Browne, Coordinating Unit Director of Pancaribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP). According to PANCAP, the Caribbean last year recorded 17,000 new HIV infections – down from 20,000 in 2007. The Caribbean region is home to 230,000 people with HIV.

Senate Finance Committee Approves Ab-Only Funding
At the end of September, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) pushed through an amendment in the Senate Finance Committee by a vote of 12-11 authorizing $50 million in funding for abstinence-only programs as part of Health Care Reform- despite over clear evidence from the last decade years that abstinence-only programs do not prevent teen pregnancy or prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections. Join Advocates for Youth in asking your Senators to strip the Hatch Amendment from Health Care Reform.

Number of People Getting Lifesaving HIV Drugs Rises
In a significant advancement, about 42% of people in the developing world who are infected with the AIDS virus and should be taking antiretroviral drugs are now receiving them, according to a new report by the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and UNICEF. The greatest increase has been in sub-Saharan Africa, where the numbers are up by more than one-third from the previous year.

Similar gains have been made in testing pregnant women and persuading infected ones to take antiretrovirals to prevent transmitting the virus to their babies. Overall, however, nearly six in 10 infected pregnant women are not given that option. “It is an incredible step forward compared to where we were in the early 2000s,” said Paul De Lay, deputy executive director of UNAIDS.

Although the number of people being treated is rising, it is not keeping pace with the epidemic. For every three people starting therapy, five become infected. In all, about 33 million people are living with the AIDS virus worldwide, with women shouldering the majority of the burden.

Reform Receives Thumbs Up From Caribbean Community
Following President Obama’s address to the nation advocating on behalf of health care reform, he received overwhelming support from New York’s Caribbean immigrant community, especially among administrators and professionals. The President’s unprecedented appeal served both to convince local skeptics of the urgency for sweeping reform extending care to the poor as well as reenergize and mobilize those who have long been working in the trenches.

OPINION
By Sylvia Lyew

Once upon a time, there was a generation of people who didn’t have to worry about STDs and teen pregnancy wasn’t really a concern. As society became more educated and highly industrialized, values have shifted, creating vast differences. Not all of these shifting values are problematic, but they can quickly become so when fun turns into disaster.

I remember being a teenager and screaming to my parents, “You just don’t want me to have fun! You’re so old-fashioned!” Probably the majority of youth have said something similar to their parents at least once during their adolescent years. Many adults want to protect the younger generation from falling into the same pitfalls they did when they were their age. Could this be why society is stuck in “Plan A?”

The classic Plan A includes abstinence and the distribution of condoms or other means of birth control. So why isn’t Plan A working? Pregnancy rates rise and drop, yet STDs increase every year. How can we effectively teach youth that it’s not that we don’t want them to enjoy life, but to think about the consequences before they act. This bit of advice can apply to any area in their lives. It is because we don’t live in a perfect world that we need to always have Plan B, and also, Plan C.

Our goal should include encouraging adolescents to have a Plan B. This includes thinking outside the perimeters of, “oh, I’m not going to do that…” Ok, so then you need to have a fallback plan in case you find yourself in that situation. This is the most difficult decision to consciously make: to listen to that inner-voice telling you to stop. If Plan A is all about protection from not getting into a situation in the first place, then Plan B has to stop the situation from becoming a dangerous one. Plan B can also include having other protective measures in place or possible solutions such as going out to public places or inviting others over to your home instead of just your partner. Or Plan B may be something very simple like having someone calling them randomly during each hour. And you have to return the phone call within a few minutes for accountability. The person can be another mutual friend. Whomever. Just the thought of someone calling would make a lot young people think twice about their actions.

It’s not that we don’t want teens to enjoy life; we want them to make responsible choices because it affects everyone. When one person in society is affected, we all are affected. AIDS is a global concern. STDs are a global concern. Unwanted pregnancy is a global concern. These issues are problematic. This takes us to Plan C.

It’s like a triangle: Plan A is to educate and prevent, Plan B is the back-up plan for when we forget (which would literally mean to stop and cease what you are doing), and Plan C is the community. We are Plan C – clinics, organizations, families that are there for support when Plans A and B fall short. Together we can use our knowledge and experience to encourage our youth to plan ahead before they find themselves in that unwanted situation.

Sylvia Lyew is the Program Coordinator for TDN.

IN THE NEWS

Fighting HIV, a Community at a Time

By Susan Okie

Federal health officials are preparing a plan to study a bold new strategy to stop the spread of the AIDS virus: routinely testing virtually every adult in a community, and promptly treating those found to be infected.

The strategy is called “test and treat,” and officials say the two sites for the three-year study will be the District of Columbia and the Bronx – locales with some of the nation’s highest rates of infection with human immunodeficiency virus.

The officials emphasize that this is just a first step. The goal is not to measure whether “test and treat” actually works to slow an epidemic, but whether such a strategy can even be carried out, given the many barriers to being tested and getting medical care.

On the path from infection to treatment, “we lose people at every single step,” said Dr. Shannon L. Hader, director of the HIV/AIDS administration at [Washington DC's] Department of Health.

And even when infection is diagnosed, “getting people from the field to the doctor is the hardest component,” said Angela Fulwood Wood, deputy director of Family and Medical Counseling Service, an agency that operates a mobile HIV testing clinic here. Often, she added, someone who has just tested positive “can walk off that day and decide, ‘I’m going to pretend that never happened.’”

The C.D.C. recommends routine, voluntary HIV testing for everyone ages 13 to 64 as a part of regular medical care. But experts say the recommendation is not being followed in many hospitals, clinics, and medical practices.

Researchers planning the study have been meeting with hospital and health officials in Washington and the Bronx to discuss making HIV testing a routine part of visits to doctors, clinics, and emergency rooms.

Dr. Fauci said testing might also be widely offered in nonmedical settings. “When you have a campaign like this, you’ve got to pull out all the stops,” he said. “How are we going to get everybody? Should we have testing in Wal-Mart? Should we have testing at Nathan’s hot dog places?”

The test and treat approach is part of a broader shift toward using medicines for HIV to prevent infection…Studies tracking heterosexual couples in which one person is infected have found that after highly effective drugs for HIV became available, uninfected partners were far less likely to contract the virus. Trials are under way to give HIV drugs as a protective measure to uninfected people at high risk.

Current treatment guidelines do not call for antiretroviral drugs until there is evidence of progressive damage to the immune system – generally, until the number of CD4 cells, the white blood cells attacked by the virus, drops to 350 per cubic milliliter or lower. (A normal count is at least 1,000.)

The guidelines are intended to balance the treatment benefits with the side effects from the drugs and the possibility of fostering drug resistance in the virus. But there is mounting evidence that early treatment keeps infected people healthy longer.

And that could have much wider benefits, researchers say. Last January, Dr. Reuben Granich and colleagues at the World Health Organization published a provocative study using mathematical models to predict the effects of universal testing and immediate treatment on a severe H.I.V. epidemic among heterosexuals. They reported that such a policy, if combined with prevention efforts like promotion of condoms and male circumcision, could virtually eliminate transmission of the virus within 10 years.

So far, despite some ambitious efforts, no city or country has come close to achieving universal testing for H.I.V. and treatment for all those infected. But researchers and public health officials are eager to test the potential of such a strategy for stemming the epidemic.

Although the latest drugs have far fewer side effects, many patients still fear that “going on the medicines means I’m starting to get sick,” she added. A critical component of test and treat will be conveying the message: “Don’t wait until you’re sick. Do it early.”

In New York City, the Bronx has the highest AIDS death rate of any borough, even though Manhattan has a higher rate of cases. Dr. Monica Sweeney, the city’s assistant health commissioner for H.I.V. prevention and control, said that was because people in the Bronx tended to wait longer to be tested and get a diagnosis.

In the first half of 2008, Dr. Sweeney said, “more than a quarter of the people who were tested in the Bronx had AIDS by the time they received their diagnosis.” By contrast, she added, people who are tested and treated before the immune system has suffered extensive damage “can expect almost a normal life expectancy.”

[Excerpted from The New York Times, October 26, 2009]

IN OTHER WORDS

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life — happiness, freedom, and peace of mind — are always attained by giving them to someone else.

–Peyton Conway March



Transdiaspora NetworkTM is a New York-based human capacity building non-profit organization conducting HIV prevention awareness and community-based, culturally aware preventive mentoring for a population of youth at high risk. In addition, it facilitates identification of community resources, empowerment based interventions, and educational approaches to increase health literacy. Our Afro-Caribbean Dance Mediation, Storytelling Dynamics and The Carib Youth Society provide solutions that increase self-awareness and assertiveness. For more information about our organization, please visit www.transdiasporanetwork.org.

©Transdiaspora Network, November 2009