America Living With AIDS

AMERICA Living With AIDS

It's not good enough to say that
we serve everyone. It's not good enough to say that our programs are open
to all. If we don't specifically design our programs in such a
way that they reach out into the community, that they become part of the
community, and the community becomes part of them, they are not as
functional as they need to be.
Coupled with our efforts to ensure
access, representation, and inclusion is the essential work of stopping the
progression of the disease through education and prevention activity, focusing
on risk reduction and behavioral change....
In communities of color, as in the
majority of communities, much of the average behavior is clandestine, behind
closed doors and unnamed or named differently-i.e., gay versus sex with
men-so that a singular outreach strategy will only reach the most physically
and obviously adverse population.
In our communities it is just as likely
that we will reach at-risk people at church functions, at the barber
and beauty shop, at the WICs program, in jail or work release, and topless
clubs, in minor camps, in the social clubs, at the food bank, at the pow wow,
or other community events, at the kind of local community gathering where
people are together and where information flows.
P. CATLIN FULLWOOD
July 1990