November 16, 2007
DESERT DAYS
the advocacy gospel
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NMAC's Paul Kawata and NAPWA's Frank Oldham Jr. at USCA (courtesy of NMAC) |
It's the biggest AIDS conference in the country, with 3,000 attendees over four-and-a-half days; hundreds of sessions (from ballroom plenaries to small-group discussions), dozens of exhibitors including huge drug companies and small video storytelling projects, and plenty of opportunities for networking, collaboration and late-night revelry.
It's the U.S. Conference on AIDS, run by the National Minority AIDS Council , which was held last week, from November 7 to 10 in lovely Palm Springs, CA, where one of the biggest complaints was that the beautiful scenery outside distracted from the sessions going on behind closed doors.
The major events of the 11th-annual USCA included an opening plenary about the state of HIV/AIDS among Native Americans, Alaskan Natives and Native Hawaiians and a performance by jazz singer and NMAC board member Nancy Wilson. But of course, there was lots of networking going on.
"There seemed to be a real desire among participants to get involved with grassroots advocacy and to really overcome differences and work together," said Housing Works director of national advocacy and organizing, Christine Campbell. There was a session on the AIDS crisis in Puerto Rico, and much organizing for a successful phone zap Tuesday targeting Puerto Rican Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá and San Juan City Mayor, Jorge Santini Padilla. There was also a woman's session to drum up support to change the CDC's policy on "no identified risk." And a particularly informative National AIDS Housing Coalition session gave tips and strategies for implementing HIV/AIDS housing in communities, particularly using the policy toolkit.
Campaign to End AIDS was in force, with sessions on community organizing and the latest "New Ryan White" town meeting on Thursday, roundtables on the Puerto Rico on Friday, and a new C2EA booth stacked with C2EA, AIDSVote and Prevention Justice materials and staffed by organizers and advocates every damn day of the conference.
Revisiting Ryan White
The USCA "New Ryan White" town hall brought together about 25 PLWHAs from around the country, including rural, suburban and urban California, suburban Maryland, New York City, suburban Chicago and Las Vegas, Nevada— and amazingly enough there were far more similarities in problems and issues than differences.
A key concern: Scattershot HIV services that don't add up to an adequate high-quality standard of care. A key problem: affordability. Consumers provided powerful testimony on the difficulty of making ends meet in a lower-income job with rent, transit and hundreds of dollars in co-pays. Their input made it clear that when it comes to uninsured and underinsured Americans living with HIV/AIDS, there's no accessibility without affordability.
Consumers also spoke about feelings that staffers at AIDS service organizations were so rushed, and sometimes seemed more concerned about filling out paperwork for grants than helping the clients. This town hall had an older crowd than the first two—in Columbus and Cleveland—and participants talked about the troubles of navigating the patchwork system of Medicaid and Medicare.