06/04/2021
The speech
H.A.I.R. TODAY…..
…. GONE TOMORROW
My name is Gary David Shaw. I am 54 years old and a long term survivor of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In 1997 I was contacted by the dept. of health and told that I may have been exposed to the virus. So I went and got tested and was diagnosed positive. My first thought was “ok.” Needless to say that wasn’t my last thought. Over a period of a week many other thoughts began to creep into my mind. Some of them were wait this can’t be happening, oh it must be a mistake, did they get the right guy, or that was just a bad dream. After all those thoughts had come and gone, one question re-occurred in my mind. “What am I going to do?” For a long time my mind was blank for an answer. For about three weeks, that question swirled in my head. As I went on in my daily life, that question integrated every communication silently in my mind. If someone said good morning to me, that question resonated between every word. Every minute of every day, “What am I going to do?” Finally the answer came to me clear as day. “I’m going to die.” It was just that simple. For all pretence and purpose, in my mind, I was already dead. Now there were no longer thoughts and questions. There were just visions of wasting, sores on my skin, people staring at me, friends and family avoiding me, days and nights spent alone, and constant unending crying. I didn’t know to whom I could turn. The only organization I knew was the one who coldly informed me of my status. They wouldn’t and couldn’t understand. I couldn’t go to my family. What would they think of me? The golden boy, who danced around the world, met princes and presidents, loved the Lord with all his heart and would never defile his body by getting THAT disease. I would no longer be a symbol to be admired by friends and relatives. From now on I would be an object of shame and disgust. Now my mind became like a multi lane highway with every lane leading to an exit and every exit was someplace I didn’t want to go. I was the only car on the road speeding at a hundred miles per hour. I had no steering wheel. I had no breaks. There seemed to be no end in sight to the rollercoaster like ride I was on. But then there it was. Su***de. There was my final destination. It sat just above the horizon of my thoughts, like the setting sun. With a warm, inviting glow it signaled the end of a hard day’s work. It was a call to finally come home. But just as quick as that realization brought a sense of relief, it also brought fear. The coward that I was came out in full force. I didn’t want to mess this up as I did my whole life. My final question I would ask myself would be how? How do I kill myself? The answer: drug overdose. It would be quick and painless just like in the movies. I’m sure it would have worked except I chose the wrong drug. My drug of choice was to overdose on crack. Instead of finding quick relief, I opened another lane on the highway and this one had no exits. The rest stops along the side of the road were psychiatric wards, mental institutions, rehab facilities, emergency rooms, depression, degradation, dereliction, pain, shame, guilt, suffering, self-loathing and hate. And as I look back on those experiences, I can honestly tell you I found no rest for my weary heart. And today I can share with you that active addiction took me many other places that I wish I never visited. The worst of those was prostitution. Today I am satisfied that my God has forgiven me and I have forgiven myself for the sins committed because of the disease of addiction. But it is the sin committed because of HIV/AIDS that I regret the most and the one of which I’m most ashamed. That is the sin of not telling. As a pr******te in active addiction telling meant loosing those ten dollars for another hit. Telling meant becoming less attractive to the highest bidder. Telling meant sooner or later everybody would know. And worst of all, I committed this sin even when I was clean. At one time my desire for love and acceptance and s*xual gratification would override my desire to be socially responsible. At one time I lived in denial of my situation because I lacked the strength and courage to say “I’m positive.” Many people might say, “ how could you do such a thing?” but when I think about the social stigmas associated with HIV/AIDS and addiction, my answer to them is, “ how could you not?” I wish I knew those people who had that strength and courage at that time in my life. Had I known them I wouldn’t be living today with the burden of knowing someone is driving my same highway because I gave them the car and the keys. The pain of that will live with me forever. So today I ask God and you for forgiveness. I wasn’t a bad person. I was just a scared person. So the years of active addiction went on and in 2005, I found myself in the basement of an abandoned building surrounded by f***s and urine and the smells that go with them. Sitting on a rock surrounded by broken glass, used condoms, discarded needles and listening to the sounds of other junkies, wh**es, pr******tes and derelicts as they enjoyed their drugs and physical pleasures. At that moment the song of my life was a funeral dirge. But then God gave me a new song to sing. The new question I asked myself was, “what are you doing?” and the answer came swift like a voice from heaven, “not what I have planned for you.” Immediately I got up and began seeking treatment. I spent a week staying clean on my own because I was denied treatment because of lack of funding. Mercifully, God gave me refuge and care at recovery network, a 6 month recovery program in Baltimore, MD. It was there my life found purpose and meaning. The Covenant, Inc., Gods vision for me, was initially created to address the need for treatment on demand for addicts seeking recovery and preventing relapse in early recovery. However, after much consideration it was decided for this organization to be driven by the need for innovative early intervention and ongoing support systems. The Covenant, Inc., God’s vision for me, was born December of 2006 with the commitment of providing creative and across the board support and early intervention services to anyone affected by Addiction mental illness and HIV/AIDS. In honoring that commitment to our youth and their communities, The Covenant, Inc. has initiated its H.A.I.R. Campaign. HAIR is an acronym that stands for humility, accountability, integrity, and responsibility.
The H.A.I.R. campaign is an advocacy, education, and prevention initiative based on our belief that when youth and communities practice the core values of Humility, Accountability, Integrity, and Responsibility, we will see a drastic reduction of HIV infection among youth due to drug use or behavior and ultimately the eradication of HIV/AIDS.
Each year there are more and more youth infected with HIV. This shows that youth aren't learning the message about the dangers of HIV, or are unable or unwilling to act on it.
Surveys are showing alarmingly low levels of awareness and understanding about HIV amongst our youth. Education is the only thing that can help to overcome such ignorance, and prevent more HIV infections from occurring.
The H.A.I.R. Campaign has three main goals:
To prevent new infections from taking place
This can be seen as consisting of two processes:
Firstly, giving people information about HIV and AIDS
Secondly, people must be taught how to put this information to use and act on it practically.
To improve quality of life for HIV positive people
Too often, AIDS education is seen as being something which should be targeted only at people who are not infected with HIV in order to prevent them from becoming infected. An important and commonly-neglected aspect of AIDS education is enabling and empowering people positive with HIV to improve their quality of life by providing them with access to medical services and drug provision and the appropriate emotional and practical support and help so they don’t infect others.
To reduce stigma and discrimination
There is a great deal of fear and stigmatization of people who are HIV positive. This fear is accompanied by ignorance, resentment and ultimately, anger. The results of prejudice and fear are extreme, because if people are fearful of being tested for HIV, then they are more likely to pass the infection to someone else without knowing.
Anyone who is vulnerable to AIDS – and everyone is vulnerable, unless they know how to protect themselves. It's not only young people, injecting drug users or gay men who become infected - the virus has affected a cross-section of society. For this reason education ought to be aimed at all parts of society, not only those groups who are seen as being particularly high-risk. The people who are most urgently in need of HIV education are those who think they're not at risk.
There are three distinct groups of people who require targeted education:
People who have not yet been educated and may be at risk of becoming infected.
This means more young people need to know the risks involved in unsafe s*x and drug use before they are old enough to find out for themselves.
People who have already been educated for whom the education was not effective.
If current AIDS education were completely effective, many people with mental illnesses would not continue to put themselves at risk and become infected.
People who are already infected.
this must involve counseling and support, and must teach them how to live positively without passing the virus on to anyone else, and they need to know how to avoid coming into contact with a strain of the virus that differs from the one they already have.
It is clear that the campaigns carried out so far have failed to prevent the spread of HIV. The Covenant, Inc.and supporters of The Covenant Community Mentoring Program have united so the H.A.I.R. message of education for prevention will be repeated, in different forms, until people appreciate it, or until, hopefully, education is no longer needed.
The H.A.I.R. Campaign will be presented in many ways across many forms of media. We will fully embrace our target groups by educating through culturally appropriate and relevant media.
The H.A.I.R campaign will address two key issues we believe are relevant to effective education and until now, low on the list of priorities in other campaigns:
Motivation:
People need to know that what they are learning about the epidemic is personally relevant to them.
Empowerment:
Crucial to people's ability to protect themselves is the ability to be in a position where they are able to take control of their behavior.
Although there are a number of different methods that can be used to educate our youth about the dangers of HIV, we have chosen four that lend themselves to creativity and effectiveness:
Peer education
Is an effective method of reaching groups who might not listen to a teacher or someone from a different background. This form of education has the advantage of avoiding the possibility of embarrassment, which makes people feel unable to ask questions of a person they find more difficult to relate to.
Active learning
Active learning realizes that people are more likely to both remember information and to relate it to themselves if they are given an opportunity to put it to use as they learn.
Blanket education
This is a general message aimed at the population as a whole.
Targeted education
This type of education will focus on risky activities particular to a specific target group
It’s been over 20 years and we are still developing resources and making plans on how to address the epidemic when there is no need anymore. Although there are innumerable resources available, it’s been over two decades and people are still being infected and are dying from AIDS. Some forms of AIDS education have shown to be more effective than others, but what is essentially important to understand is that our youth are uninformed about the dangers and know little about how to protect themselves and other people from infection.
Although my life has been a whirlwind of ups and downs, I am grateful for them all. Today I stand before you with an undetectable viral load and 900 t-cells. Today I no longer look for love in all the wrong places. My family is completely supportive of me and reminds me constantly that I will never be alone. I have a Pastor and church family in Gallery Church SOWEBO that gives me every opportunity to serve the Lord with all my gifts and talents. Today I am no longer afraid to say I’m positive.
Today I’m positive I will practice humility by staying in right relationship with God and my fellow man.
Today I am positive I will be accountable to others with my behaviors and actions.
Today I’m positive I will practice integrity by doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason.
Today I’m positive I will be responsible with the new life God has given me by sharing the Love, Empathy, Humility, Concern, Mercy, Understanding, Healing, and Restoration that I have personally experienced in my renewed relationship with Christ Jesus.
AIDS is a terrible disease and many have lost hope that researchers would find a cure in our lifetime. But there is a cure. And I believe that cure is proper prevention education. Research will make breakthroughs, and AIDS education must continue to reach the masses because NO PERSON is immune from this disease. But I will continue to have hope and I look forward to the day that it can be said of me, “he was the last of their kind.”
