Jerusalem Print

I remember being tested for the first time and waiting for the results.  My biggest issue was, why did I have to go through this scare to learn about how it’s transmitted and the importance of condoms?!?

Jerusalem, 23, is a member of the Young Women of Color Leadership Council.

I was the stereotypical naïve virgin all throughout high school. I had a close circle of friends who were sexually active but during those ‘intimate talks’ would leave me out—I guess doing me a favor by not tainting my innocent ears. But I do remember one of my girlfriends swearing she would never go to the health dept and get tested because “it’s like the only ones who end up with HIV are the ones who go in there.”

Fast forward to the end of my freshman year of college, after a hard break-up with an ex who I caught cheating, and the Wellness Center at my school was offering HIV tests for free. I remember being tested for the first time and waiting those looong couple of weeks being so scared of what I would do and who I could tell and…what would my mom think…what if I turned up HIV+.

The whole rollercoaster of emotions I experienced drew me to this topic.

Clearly by everyone’s reaction to getting testing there is a fear surrounding this topic. But it is very relevant and a threat to anyone who does have sex, regardless if it’s one or many partners. My biggest issue was, why did I have to go through this scare to learn about how it’s transmitted and the importance of condoms?!? Granted I wasn’t completely oblivious to condoms and STDs but for the most part I never had a lecture on it growing up—seriously.

So from there I began volunteering with UCF’s Wellness Center and in time became a peer educator/HIV counselor. The next summer I interned for Florida’s Bureau for HIV/AIDS’s Area 7 office and helped with planning community events surrounding this topic, which eventually led to my working for a local comprehensive AIDS organization here in Orlando, the Hope and Help Center. I’m the youth health educator, and still an HIV counselor/tester. I educate the youth in my school district and the local community centers.

Our mission is to save lives by treating and preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS in Central Florida and my personal mission is to find teen girls with that same old mindset (both high-risk and low-risk) and educate, educate, educate; and offer a test too, of course.