We need to pinpoint clearly who the enemy is AIDS is also a sexually transmitted container And you'll be surprised at the kids that really don't know about AIDS and their skill-tastic The fact that they're being used is about you can get to AIDS from shaking hands You can get to AIDS from sitting around somebody if somebody cough on you You can get to AIDS But we want to give them the real facts about AIDS And we want to show them the things that they can do to prevent them You can get to the AIDS themselves Well we're into approximately eight elementary schools for junior high and for senior high schools in our area And what we're trying to do to give them a little education About it and that is way of pamphlets We do look testing with them, we show them films And we play little roles with them about AIDS On the streets of New York City, where IV drug abuse is the way AIDS is primarily spread There is project adept What we are out there to do is to give a message of AIDS prevention To tell them that you can survive with having an addiction, you're not going to survive with AIDS Basically we tell them how to protect themselves as far as using condoms
As far as practice in safer IV drug use, we give them bleach kids Which include a two-ons bottle of water, two-ons bottle of bleach Cotton a cooker where they use to cook their drugs Because if you share the water, the cooker, the cotton is not only the needle And the syringe, you're at risk of getting AIDS So the message that we give them is to learn how to sterilize all of those equipment Because in view that there's no drug treatment programs available in view That in 1972 was the last program that opened up here in New York City We have to do something, we teach them harm reduction How to safely shoot up and how to safely find a right vein whenever possible Again, we're not condoning drug abuse, we're seeing it as a way of teaching them How to not get infected and teaching them how to not spread this virus To their sexual partners, because many of them do have sexual partners The average person don't want to share needles, he only does it when there's no other choice That's the only choice left to him, it's the sharing of the needle That's why you're doing, you know, because the average person keeps his own set
And he won't let nobody else use this set, you know But sometimes a guy come up to you and he's sick and you ain't got no money And he needs a little money, you know, he'll give you a little money And you'll give him the news needle, you know, because he needed and you need the money Right now, we're dealing with an epidemic And we sort of even have to put aside drug use for now Because what's happening is young people are dying And they're not dying alone, they're taking their sexual partners and their children So yes, we say in a way, as seen as condoning drug abuse, but we don't see it like that We see it as a way of preventing the furthest spread of HIV infection To their sexual partners and to their children Talking about the kinds of things that the New York Public Health Department has done to fight this epidemic You talk about the outreach programs, but you don't talk about needle exchanges, how come? You're right, I happen I think one of the things that happens in New York City, particularly the controversial kind of things Like the needle exchange program is it becomes either or so that they say that
Oh, we shouldn't have a needle exchange program, we should have just this I think with AIDS, one of the things that I have grown to understand and accept That we've got to have in what I would call an eclectic approach And that is, let's try a multitude of things And whatever works, let it works because it'll work for some people and won't work for others But we've got to try a lot of things when we've got to try them quick We need to begin outreach industry In the street outreach, we will identify the specific populations that need more even-directed Education, transsexuals, there might be teens that are involved in sex for money Prostitution behaviors that we need to get information to that are gay-oriented There's different segments at that population And street outreach will find those segments and be able to better define our outreach efforts The street program's Curtis is referring to, are sponsored by Philadelphia's Babashi organization A group that focuses on sexual health issues affecting the black community One of the most successful programs involves the distribution of condoms in gay neighborhoods I think that you can reach a certain element of the population, the community
By giving out brochures and by television programs and radios But I think it's much more one-on-one, it's much more personal When you can hand people condoms and talk to them, why it's important to use condoms So, minorities are fighting hard against the scourge of AIDS, even though they often get little credit But to say that we haven't been doing this since day one of this epidemic
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The AIDS Crisis and the Gay Rights Backlash in Houston (1991)
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