Health Hero:
Helping Young Women in NYC Become HIV/AIDS Peer Educators
Claire Simon talks
about her organization, Young Women of Color HIV/AIDS Coalition.
By Kellee Terrell
Posted: 12/18/2012
04:18 PM EST
Given these statistics, in 2005, there wasn’t
a local political response addressing the epidemic among women and girls. To
fill in that gap, a group of HIV/AIDS advocates came together to talk
about what was happening
with young girls (PDF).
Then, the Young Women of Color HIV/AIDS Coalition (YWCHAC) was born. Seven years and 150 graduates
later, the group’s WE SPEAK peer education group for young women —
both HIV positive and negative — has empowered a new generation of female
HIV/AIDS activists and leaders. Claire Simon, the organization’s
co-founder/co-director sat down with BET.com to talk about her
amazing group of young women.
What were some of your major concerns from the
beginning?
We hadn’t seen a real local and state response
for women and girls since the mid-‘90s with the push to test pregnant mothers
for HIV in New York. Obviously, a new one was needed. Girls as young as 15, 16
were testing positive; some were testing positive as a result from sexual
abuse; we saw a lot of young girls dating much older men; and there was a lack
of information and resources for this demographic. But most important: How
could we engage these same young women, have them tell their own stories to
help others and to teach them to be advocates?
One of the first steps to finding this out was
asking young women, “What do you want? What are your concerns?”
What were the concerns?They wanted three main things: To have more educational opportunities, to be economically secure and to know more about their health and bodies. They believed that if they graduated from high school and went to college, they would have their own money and not have to depend on someone else. Also having an education meant being able to voice their needs.
Also, they believed that knowing about their bodies — health exams, puberty, menstruation, HIV-risk — would help them be more informed and make better decisions. For them it was simple: More opportunities, more knowledge meant more options in life.
And so the program is really about helping
them achieve just that.
Tell us more about the program.
Each year, we have a group of 25-35 high
schoolers from all five boroughs and we meet almost every Friday. The meetings
are a safe space for young women to learn about HIV/AIDS and other issues, to
talk about what they are going through and to develop as peer leaders so that
they can go back into their communities.
In terms of events and outings, we also have a
summer institute, we’ve had testing parties for youth across the city, gone on
retreats and [have] hosted a film festival since 2008. Some of our young women
have sat on panels, including the International AIDS Conference this past
summer. We even have a few affiliate chapters on college campuses that are
taking this message even further to a broader audience.
And we know it’s working because our young
women tell us that this program has changed their lives. They can now talk to
their mothers, apply for colleges that they didn’t even know existed until now
or be confident to see their local councilperson on the train and tell them
what more they could be doing for the community.
Most important: These young women really run
this program. They set the agenda, create the activities and they tell us what
they want to do. We try to make it happen with the resources we have. And let
me tell you, in the beginning, we were doing this for free with the help of
people donating space, time, food, Metrocards, you name it.
But for me, that’s what you do when something
is truly a labor of love.
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(Photo: Beatrice Moritz/Young Women of Color
HIV/AIDS Coalition)