John is a member of the Ohio Advocates. 

My Dream is to See Universal Awareness of the Effects and Hardships of HIV/AIDS With All Stigmas and Prejudices Put Aside, and to See All Communities Band Together for the Awareness and Prevention of This Disease

My name is John. I am 17 years old, and I am a senior in high school. I am a hotline operator and work with the MSM(Men who have Sex with Men) Outreach Team at the Columbus AIDS Task Force. Like the typical oblivious person, I first believed that HIV was a disease that I would never see and it would never affect me on a personal level. However, I was in for a rude awakening when a close friend confided in me and told me that he had been positive for two years. Around the same time I was worrying about testing positive myself. I got tested and thankfully I was negative, but afterwards I was inspired by both my friend and my own close call to get involved in the prevention and awareness of a disease that is so prevalent in America and in all other parts of the world.

I joined CATF because preventing and raising awareness of HIV/AIDS has become a passionate dream for me as I have been personally affected by the disease. As a hotline operator I help those in need of information of testing sites, symptoms of HIV/AIDS and other STDs, how they are transmitted, and how people can lower the risk or prevent themselves from getting these diseases. I also work with the MSM Outreach Team in which I hand out safe sex packets to various locales in which MSM congregate, and staff informational tables and survey MSM at various locales. In a large population of the gay community I have witnessed a fearless attitude towards the consequences of unprotected sex and the dreadful diseases such as HIV/AIDS that can stem from it. However, I believe that with raising the awareness and opening people in our community to see how common HIV/AIDS and other STDs are, we can change their knowledge of these potential dangers, and work towards a safer and more conscious society.

There are many stigmas and prejudices that block the achievement of  successfully preventing and responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic however. Credible knowledge needs to be spread to everyone regarding the crisis. The youth of America and those young people in the rest of the world are responsible for this task. We are the future. We need to achieve a society in which HIV/AIDS is understood and  prevented. Breaking down the barriers of the stigmas and prejudices regarding this disease is the first step. HIV/AIDS can affect anyone, regardless of race, orientation, ethnicity, and age. It is not simply a “gay disease” or an “African disease”. Millions of people from different backgrounds are infected or dying from this disease. HIV/AIDS is not selective in whom it affects, so why should we be selective in whom we educate or what community we focus this crisis on?

My dream is to see the African American community, Gay community, Hispanic Community, Straight community, and all the others cohesively work together in order to fight for the prevention of this disease. I strongly believe that the youth is the key to success in doing so.