If +Positive House had a way of honoring specific programs for comprehensive inclusiveness, The Black Coalition on AIDS's peer-designed "Living Now" Program for positive people of all genders, sexual orientations, ethnicities, and histories would be top of the prospect A+ list. The program includes guest speakers who address different issues about living with this virus. [We will begin evaluation of its ten-week course Wednesday, September 26th.]
"Living Now"
10 Wednesdays, 1:00-3:00, beginning Sept. 26
Black Coalition on AIDS
2800 3rd Street @ 24th
Contact: Alfred, (415) 615-9945
Just Discovered: The Black Coalition on AIDS also offers (to all positive people) a + human relationships program. This is a seven-week weekly series beginning at 10:30 Tuesday, October 3. The structured course begins with subjects of relationships of positive people with their friends and family members and ends with subjects of positve sexual and romantic relationships.
Contact: Ben Hayes or Melinda, (415) 615-9945
Two prospective A+'s from this house to BCA.
+ a virtual agency of San Francisco for HIV+ people and their friends of all kinds +
1.
My wiseman/doctor told me to consider focusing on what I want rather than on trying to help. In some way I don’t think he intended, that switched my mode of thinking from: I need this help or that help, and if I need it I am probably not the only one who does--so there is potential justification in complaining about not getting it--to: If I had millions of dollars and unlimited resources, this is what I would want to give to HIV+ people in San Francisco, my closest community, (anonymously), because (--I don’t have any reason to think anyone else would want it, and I have no reason to believe that it could exist) but--this is all that I want:
If I could be a client to this imaginary agency, if I could just be in the house, it would make my life here worth all the other care I now receive. I very much believe that the surroundings a "+Positive House" would allow would result in my unfolding into living the worthy, content, productive life my caregivers wish for me, that I can’t live now.
I would want to give this my house--not as replacement or improvement to existing SF HIV-care for myself or others, and not without gratitude--but as adjunct to what already exists, and as outreach, by inclusion, to some individuals and to some forms of relationships considered not to be in need of help, or not considered at all.
+Positive House is a playfully edgy, lovingly made-up space, but any aspect of it, or even slightly changed approach represented by it would contribute to this real person's holistic health and wellbeing in the world (and in this city) as an HIV+ individual--beyond the ways her present treatment and environment are able to help, and beyond what she is capable of on her own.
This is the whole of what I would want to magically be able to give, give away, and then to receive somehow in reality.
the caretaker
sfpositive@gmail.ccom
My Profile
SF HIV Testing Sites
HIV/AIDS 101
SF HIV Prevention
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SF + Referral
- +She
- AIDS Emergency Fund
- AIDS/HIV Nightline (nighttime emotional support)
- Black Coalition on AIDS
- El Grupo (Latino/Latina support).html
- Positive Resource Center (work)
- Project Inform (treatment info)
- Project Open Hand (food)
- Saint James Infirmary (for sex workers of all kinds)
- San Francisco AIDS Foundation
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- Smoking Cessation for + People
- Speed Project (for men)
- Stop AIDS Project (for men)
- UCSF AIDS Health Project (counseling and mental health)
+ Matchmaking
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- Kirtan
- Names Project (the Quilt)
- PAWS-Pets Are Wonderful Support
- Peet's Coffee andTea (mail order)
- PFLAG (Parents,Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)
- Positive Pedalers
- SF Free Walking Tours
- SF Insight (meditation)
- SF SPCA Dog-Walking and Cat-Socializing
- Shanti LIFE program
Coveted Inclusive HIV+ Community Coffee House
Outside World
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- And the Band Played On
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+ House Favorite Blogs
Caretaker's Blog
Want to create cafe reading, writing, or topic discussion groups for SF HIV+ people and friends?
"To look life in the face,
...always, to look life in the face. To know it for what it is. To love it for what it is. And, then, to put it away.... Always the years between us.... Always the years. Always the love. Always the hours." -Virginia Woolf in "The Hours"
3 comments:
I attended the first session of "Living Now" on September 26. I am impressed and encouraged so far. I'm not going to say too much about the attendees except that I was pleased and relieved by the diversity. There were twelve people including the facillitator--mostly African American, mostly gay men (a couple if-y), one other woman, two transgenders, one black, one white.
While it is important to me personally to feel included in a non-gender-segregated positive community, I also wish that the option could exist somewhere more neutral. I'm very concerned about infringing on the only environment here reserved for African American positive people. I'm glad, but I'm not quite sure why the rest of us are welcome in this group.
I will not discuss personal issues, but I will include record of session topics here as they happen.
I asked Alfred, the facillitator, about the other program there that I was referred to (the group on different kinds of relationship issues impacted by HIV--which is what I'm really looking for). I told Alfred I wanted to go to that one as long as I wasn't the only woman, but Alfred said, "I think you're good with this."
Second Wednesday session of "Living Now": Well-informed, helpful HIV/AIDS sevice representative was available to answer questions regarding any HIV/AIDS care services. Almost all questions concerned housing--San Francisco conflict between the access to cutting-edge medical care, and the near impossibility of housing options for many in-need, low-income, positive people. Disheartening (to say the least) but informative and supportive meeting.
Talked to counselor at AIDS Health Project Thurday (today) about worry about infringing at Black Coalition on AIDS as a white woman. He was encouraging that it was OK and also let me know about an all-positive-inclusive writing group at AHP (that has been held before but is not advertised in its newsletter). (He said it's not exactly a wrting group; it's a support group that uses writing.) I told him I would definitely be interested. Things are looking up. But why the secrecy? Just knowing inclusive options exist at all is healing. Put it in the newsletter. Are you afraid the inclusive group options would scare men away from the men-for-men-only options? I don't get it.
At my intake on Friday , I asked why the Black Coalition on AIDS is so inclusive, and was tolf that BCA was created to meet the needs of African Americans with HIV or AIDS whose needs were not being addressed. Once BCA was established they did not believe it was right to exclude someone based on sexual orientation, gender, or color. Many programs there are specific to and for African Americans needs only. But "Living Now" (which is primarily about treatment adherence), the +human relationships series (described in the post), and some drop-in groups are for anyone with HIV or AIDS who needs them.
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