As part of my duties as an Embajadora, I had to moderate a discussion panel titled “Diagnosis
and Treatment of HIV in Prisons: Obstacles and Opportunities,” which took place
at the Global Village at the XIX
International AIDS Conference. The panel included videos of two
organizations that work in the prison system: Programa de VIH/SIDA in Ciudad de
México, and Comité
Contra el SIDA (CoCoSi), from El Salvador.
At the
beginning, I was a bit reluctant to do this, as discussion moderation is not
one of my strongest skills, but I accepted the challenge anyway. And after getting to know the presenters I
was definitively convinced that this was a perfect opportunity for me. Nathalie
Gras Allain, from the Programa de
VIH/SIDA, and Elizabeth Membreño, from CoCoSi,
still display that excitement, that motivation that you have when you are close
to the people you are assisting.
Unfortunately, this is something that many of us lost after several
years in the field, when proposals, finances and the agency’s survival take
over and take you away from the most intimate aspect of the organization which,
in my view, is precisely the contact with those we support. Nathalie and Elizabeth
still have it; they have not lost it.
You can hear it in their words, in the tone of their voices, in the
pride that was reflected on their faces as they watched the videos from their
respective organizations. 
Both videos were very moving,
presenting the reality faced by people with HIV/AIDS in the prison system in
these two countries. Homelessness, physical and emotional abuse, prostitution,
hunger, drug abuse, lack of family support: these were common threads that the
participants faced before they were incarcerated. It makes you wonder how the
lives of these brothers and sisters would have turned out to be had they not
faced such harsh situations. And then,
once inside the prison system, the new set of challenges they had to deal with,
such as discrimination based on their HIV status or their sexuality, lack of
representation, and lack of access to basic services.
But there is also another side to
their stories. You also get to know
about the love and support they have found inside the system and from each
other. Time and again we saw the
participants express how these two things have made them face their reality.
They strive to be informed about issues related to HIV and their wellbeing and
this must have an impact on their lives. Like treatment adherence, for example;
many of the people featured in the video claimed to be fully adherent to their
treatment, which could account for their good health despite the conditions in
which they live and despite the lack of access to other services, overcrowding,
poor nutrition, etc. One of the doctors
featured on the video mentioned that many times the inmates are more
knowledgeable about HIV than other health professionals. And one of the inmates made a statement that
can account for this; he said “estamos en
el caballo y hay que jinetearlo” – which can be translated into we are mounted on the horse and we must
tame it. Perfect analogy for their
situation.
This experience made me reflect on
how things have changed in the last 30 years of this epidemic, or at least in
the last 20 years in which I have been involved in the struggle against
HIV/AIDS. Before cocktails, before all
the medical advances, before the behavioral interventions, there were some
basic things that kept people going.
There was love; people loved each other and helped each other out of
love, out of a common struggle against something that seemed insurmountable. There
was support; people helped each other, volunteers going to delivered hot meals
to those in need. People came together
regularly to talk about the challenges, to solve problems, to look for
options. We did what had to be done,
what it was necessary, not what was prescribed as the optimal solution.
We have lost some of that. And while I am grateful for all the advances
and the millions of lives they have saved, I long for those days. Obviously, not for all the death and despair
of back then, but for the common bond that existed and that seems somewhat lost
now. The urge to educate ourselves, to
know more, to see what else could be done to improve the chances of staying
alive, including taking medications religiously. Some of that seems to have also been lost in
the process. So sometimes is good to view a different reality than our own.
Sometimes it is good to see where others are at in order to put into
perspective what we have. And for us,
service providers, it is also good to come down from our dark offices full of
papers and deadlines, and come back in contact with those we are trying to
help.
That is precisely what the videos
by these two organizations did to me: it made me come to terms with the reality
faced by some organizations today, including my own. And it has renewed my commitment to face the
obstacles just like we did years ago, and take advantages of the opportunities
that we have to regain some of what has been lost.
My acknowledgements and respect for
these two organizations and the work they do, and to Nathalie and Elizabeth for
the well-placed pride they have on their organizations. You are doing a
wonderful job!
