Global Aids Alliance Home

This blog entry marks the first from GAA's new intern, Tucker Landesman. Tucker is a senior at George Washington University, where he is majoring in international relations with a concentration in global public health. Originally from St. Louis, Tucker is Mid-Atlantic Regional Grassroots Coordinator for the Student Global AIDS Campaign, and will be interning with GAA until May 2008.

Tuesday, January 29, was Sock Day!  A group of dedicated activists form GAA, Student Global AIDS Campaign, ACT UP Philadelphia, Health GAP, Americans for Informed Democracy, and Advocates for Youth gathered on Capitol Hill to call on Congress to fully fund the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and add needed flexibility to the global AIDS legislation, including comprehensive sex education, expanded treatment access, a repeal of the anti-prostitution loyalty pledge, and support for in-country health care workers.

Despite the cold and the rain, grassroots activists from DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey came together to deliver hundreds of socks strung on clotheslines and shoved into laundry bags and backpacks to Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Senator Richard Lugar. We urged them not to get "cold feet" when it comes to PEPFAR. 

In his State of the Union address on Monday evening, President Bush announced to Congress and the nation that he is requesting $30 billion to extend PEPFAR for another five years. USA Today has called this a doubling of AIDS funding. But in reality the US is spending $6 billion on AIDS this year, which multiplied over five years totals $30 billion. So the White House proposal really amounts to flat funding the fight against global AIDS.

What does flat funding really mean? It means that the agreed-upon goal of universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care is out of reach. It means that millions of people will still not have access to lifesaving drugs that cost pennies to produce. It means that millions more will continue to be infected with HIV each year, because they don't have access to basic prevention information. It means that hospitals and community-based clinics in poor countries will remain under-staffed and ill-equipped to care for people living with HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Flat funding means that the US can't be counted on to keep its promises!  The President and Congress made a commitment to ensure universal access to HIV/AIDS services, and we challenge them to keep that commitment!

Our action on Tuesday was about more than a dollar amount;, because we want to change the way we spend our dollars.  Any responsible fiscal conservative will tell you that money should be spent effectively and efficiently. Well, we want the opportunity to do just that. We want to allocate our resources the best way possible, but we can't do do that if we maintain the status quo of PEPFAR and a narrow "ABC" approach to prevention programming. Abstinence is a great HIV prevention strategy. So is being faithful. No one denies those facts. But an exclusive emphasis on abstinence and fidelity denies essential information to people at risk of HIV infection and undermines efforts to stop the spread of AIDS. The moral agenda of a few US legislators shouldn't be allowed to limit community-based prevention programs. We need comprehensive sex education! We need it because it works! Comprehensive education is the most effective way to combat the epidemic. We know this because we've seen the data. We know this because we've listened to public health and medical experts, not to polarizing and divisive politicians.

Denying prevention educators the ability to go beyond abstinence, beyond faithfulness, and even beyond condoms—the ability to comprehensively educate their communities about how to prevent HIV—makes us complicit in the 2.5 million new infections each year. We say that a segmented, earmarked HIV prevention strategy is second rate and unacceptable. We say this because ten of PEPFAR's focus countries have applied for a waiver that would exempt them from spending one-third of prevention funds on abstinence-only programming. Ten countries out of 15 want to arm their communities with comprehensive tools to protect against HIV because they know that access to information is more than simply the best way to combat the epidemic, it is a basic human right!

Some congressional staffers were relatively receptive to our concerns, reminding us that global AIDS is not a partisan issue and encouraging us to continue the struggle for universal access to prevention, treatment, and care. Unfortunately some members of Congress, despite recognizing that AIDS lies beyond party lines, will continue to weaken the legislation with their personal moral agendas. Our goal as a social movement is to remind our representatives on Capitol Hill that PEPFAR is about one fundamental thing: saving lives. Apparently, that is easy to forget in the crazy political mess that is Congress. That is why we have to keep our representatives in line and hold them accountable! We must call upon our representatives to stand for conscience and scientific evidence. 

Those of us who took part in Tuesday's action, those of us who have had the opportunity to lobby our representatives in Washington or in our home states, can attest that we have social power as students, as public health advocates, and as concerned citizens. We are the grassroots movement, and we do make a difference when we mobilize effectively. That is why we all must rally together iand urge our congressional representatives to support new PEPFAR legislation proposed by Representative Tom Lantos, support effective programming, support people living with HIV/AIDS, and above all, support the human right to access health care and education with dignity and respect.

Click here to read GAA's press release on the Bush funding proposal.

Tomorrow is my last day interning with the Global AIDS Alliance, so I thought I might take a minute (or two or three) and look back on my semester here ...

Or maybe not. This is a lot harder than it looks. I've been in DC, away from Small-College-Town, Kentucky, for 15 weeks. I've learned a lot, met so many amazing people, and grown and changed so much, but I can't think of a single thing to say. Actually I can think of a million, but they're all sappy and sentimental and not what you, the loyal reader, expects from a blog on a global AIDS advocacy website. 

I think what I want to say is this: I hope my time here at GAA has made a difference. I hope that by writing this blog and attempting to build a grassroots network in Michigan and getting arrested, I have raised a little bit of awareness in someone else and maybe convinced them to get involved. I hope that I can take all the things I've learned here and bring them back to Small-College-Town and continue to make a difference.

I have so many new ambitions because of my time here, and I hope that I can make them all happen. I hope that the next intern learns just as much as I have (and more), and feels the same excitement about coming to work every day that I did. I hope that by the time I return to DC, there won't be a need for an organization like GAA, because that would mean that problems like the lack of access to lifesaving treatment and care had been solved. On the other hand, I hope that organizations like GAA will always be here, because I'm going to need a job with a real paycheck someday!

Have a fabulous holiday and an even better New Year!

Katie

This past Friday, I took part in my very first act of civil disobedience (CD) as part of a World AIDS Day protest. It was exhilarating and exciting and nerve-racking.  I knew what I was doing was important, but I think the experience would have meant even more if I'd known more about civil disobedience. So I want to provide you with some of the history of and the reasons for CD.

CD goes all the way back to the publication of Henry David Thoreau's 1849 essay of the same name in which he explains his refusal to pay a poll tax—an act that was meant to show his opposition to the Mexican-American War.

Acts of CD have been used to create huge changes all over the world and here in the US. Gandhi and Mandela used CD to end oppression in their India and South Africa. The bus boycotts and lunch counter sit-ins of the 1960's civil rights movement, here in the US, were acts of CD. Women in Great Britain used to CD to earn the right to vote. And the burning of draft cards and other mass demonstrations against the Vietnam War were acts of CD. Clearly, I am in good company, but I'm not sure I understood last week what I was really doing or even why it would work; I just knew that I was fed up with US policy on AIDS and I needed to do something.

We were using the "Act up, Fight Back" chant at the protest and so I thought ACT-UP New York would be a great place to go for more information. They explain that CD is usually an act that deliberately breaks a law because the person or group believes that the law is unjust.  They go on to explain that it isn't always that easy when protesting AIDS policy, etc. We have to use different tactics, such as sitting in front of the White House or the Capitol building and refusing to move until our demands are met. It's important to note that the goal of an act of CD is not to get arrested, but to have your demands met. That won't generally happen after one demonstration, but a well-executed act of CD will garner attention for your demands and educate others about your cause.

There, don't you feel super-informed? Now on to the really fun stuff—my first CD arrest.

A group of 40 students and activists sat on the sidewalk in front of the north portico of the White House, where an enormous (28-feet to be exact) red ribbon hung. We were demanding an increase in funding for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEFPAR), and an end to policies such as the one-third abstinence-only earmark and the Prostitution Pledge. We were wearing t-shirts that labeled us as at-risk men, women, and children, as well as doctors, teachers, and nurses who had their hands tied by "red tape". We chanted "One warning, two warning, three warning, eight—we won't go 'til you cut the red tape!" and "When people with AIDS are under attack, what do we do? Act up, fight back!"

We got our three warnings, and then they started arresting us. I was terrified. I had decided at the last minute that I would join the group in risking arrest, so I was completely unprepared for what was going to be happening. In reality, it wasn't that scary at all. Our hands were held behind our backs with zip-ties, and we were given the option of walking or being carried (or dragged). Since I was already scared and unprepared I chose to walk, but others around me told the officers "I am not resisting arrest, but I am not going to stand up" and so they were carried, still chanting, to the waiting police van. We spent about four hours in jail and had to pay a $100 fee.

I learned a lot that night and met a lot of really awesome people. I haven't seen any direct, tangible results from the protest, but I still feel like I participated in something important and made a difference. And I can definitely see myself participating in an act of civil disobedience again.

Click here for more information on the history and reasons for CD.

And check out these links for media and photos from the demonstration on Friday!

• http://news.yahoo.com/photo/071130/480/4ebd2a0ac74d4fd58cc9b40fbcaf2b70  
• http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=5089648&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1
• http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=5271307&ch=4226716&src=news
• http://www.my58.com/news/14744880/detail.html