August 10, 2007
LONE STAR STATE OF MIND
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Houston crusader Kasege |
They say everything is bigger in Texas and soon that may be true of the state's Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA) chapter. Last week, organizers held C2EA gatherings in Dallas and Houston that attracted scores of Texans living with HIV/AIDS and local service providers.
For C2EA national organizer Larry Bryant, who lived for years in both Houston and Dallas, it was a sort of homecoming. "I can't believe how good it felt to come back to Texas and see all these folks who want to dedicate themselves to ending AIDS. The constant theme was, 'How can we be involved?'" said Bryant.
A robust advocacy effort in Texas can't come a moment too soon. In 2005, the state was fourth in the nation for new AIDS cases. Twenty-three percent of them were among women.
The first of the two C2EA meetings was in Houston, where some 30 people braved massive thunderstorms to gather at the Center for AIDS for Southern-style fried chicken, lessons about grassroots advocacy and in particular C2EA's efforts to put the power to end AIDS in the hands of those living with the disease. A day later C2EA Texas President Byron Montgomery and Larry Bryant were in Dallas, meeting with about 25 residents of Hillcrest House, a 64-unit housing facility for homeless people with HIV/AIDS. Attendees were enthusiastic—and one even chided herself for her own complacency. "I admit that having housing and care has made me not worry about politics. But after this meeting that's going to change," she said.
Folks at both meetings were particularly fired up about discrimination against a 2-year-old with HIV in nearby Alabama. The toddler was banned from a pool and showers at an RV park by the park's owners. "That's pretty ignorant. It's about people still not being informed," said Robin Bennett, who runs the nonprofit organization Robin's Haven of Hope in Houston. "We have to break the stigma. I will do everything in my power to help get C2EA off the ground in Houston."
'I had to stand up'
One reason the Houston event was so well-attended was the charisma of Fortunata Kasege, 33. Kasege's personal journey has taken her from near-total indifference to activism to a consuming passion for it. Kasege was diagnosed with HIV in 1997, when she was pregnant with her daughter—and had just emigrated to the U.S. from Tanzania on a student visa hoping to become a journalist. For the next decade, she didn't think much about AIDS activism: She was too busy caring for her HIV-negative daughter, privately dealing with depression and keeping herself healthy.
Then her father passed away. Kasege couldn't go to the funeral in Tanzania because she didn't know if she'd be able to get back into the U.S., which bans prospective immigrants, foreign students, refugees, and tourists with HIV from entering the country. "I was at this point where I had to stand up," said Kasege. "I had to decide: Do I make something positive out of the mess that was there, or do I just lay down and die?"
Kasege began doing volunteer work, then heard about C2EA, and "started following C2EA around" to various conferences. Soon she was helping organize C2EA in Houston. "I thought, 'Why don't we have a group like that in Houston? That's exactly what I want to do,'" she said. Kasege's next challenge will be galvanizing folks in Galveston, a few miles away, where she has heard that people travel 45 minutes to Houston to receive medication.
Kasege, Byron, Bryant and C2EA Texas won't stop there. The state chapter is already gearing up to go to Austin in anticipation of the 2008 elections.