Women’s Health Dec 2009: Action Figure Joy Lynn Alegarbes
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Spreading the Word
This feisty Filipina is at the forefront of educating people about condom use in the fight against AIDS.
Name: Joy Lynn Alegarbes
Age: 30
Homebase: New York City, New York
Why she’s an action figure:
Joy Lynn is a sexual health advocate and the director of global operations for The Condom Project (TCP).
In this role, Joy Lynn fights the battle against HIV/AIDS by developing culture-sensitive programs to de-stigmatize condom use and educate communities about their efficacy in HIV prevention. These programs are done in the 10 countries where TCP is present.
She also founded the sexual health education program for Camp TLC (Teens Living a Challenge) of the Joey DiPaolo AIDS Foundation, a summer camp for teenagers who are living with HIV or AIDS.
The makings of a sexual health advocate
Joy Lynn speaks: My work with condoms and sexual health education began in high school while volunteering with the HIV/AIDS theater group of the American Red Cross. In college, at New York University(NYU), I trained as a Sexual health Advocate at NYU’s Health Promotion Office.
Setting up Camp
When I first joined the workforce in 2001, it was as the sexual health director for Condomania, New York. I served spokesperson for all of Condomania’s film, television and media appearances.
Condomania was the first condom store in the US to offer a full range of condoms and safer sex products along with educational materials advocating their proper use. The aim was to help people make educated choices about safer sex through access to accurate information and non-judgmental consultation with our trained staff.
It was working as the Sexual Health Director for Condomania that I found a lack of resources about the use of condoms beyond prevention. There was not a lot of information about maintenance or living with HIV. I supplemented much of my training with self-conducted research and observation.
This also led me to create the sexual health education program for the Camp TLC (Teens Living a Challenge) in 2002. Camp “TLC” is a free summer camp for HIV-positive teenagers, ages 13 – 19. Many of the camp participants are born with HIV and almost all are orphans living with adoptive or foster parents.
The art of condom education
In 2004, I joined The Condom Project where my responsibilities were directed toward sexual health education through performance art.
The primary focus of The Condom Project (TCP) is to destigmatize condoms. It is impossible to even begin dialogue about the efficacy of condoms if people are not willing to say or even hear the word “condom”.
TCP works in 10 different countries — a culturally diverse audience. As global director for operations, my aim is to unite the global community through art-based educational programs about condoms that are culturally specific and appropriate. These creative strategies help open the door to the discussion of condoms.
One of these activities is called the Condom Art Pin – Making Program which involves physically putting a condom into someone’s hand and creating wearable usable art that just happens to be on a condom. It may seem like a simple activity but through a facilitated discussion by TCP, it is effective in engaging people to talk about myths or misperceptions about condoms.
Another is a forum for interactive condom education called the “TCP Condom Zone” where I have a display of condoms that are unrolled and inflated so that visitors can see different sizes, shapes, colors and textures available. I also educate them about a variety of lubricants that are available.
Risks & Rewards
One of the difficulties is how people treat me because of how they perceive the work I do. I do not encourage children to be sexually active or men to be unfaithful to their wives. I love my work, and the more time that I spend within a given community the less likely these things are to happen; but it is still one of the most difficult aspects of my job.
But the rewards of my job are worth it. One of the most fulfilling aspects of my work is watching the people I train become educators. In Ethiopia, a young man in one of my workshops told me he had never touched a condom. He did not understand its purpose since the condom wouldn’t fit over his testicles. I explained how a condom should be used, and we continued to have a discussion about the benefits of safer sex. When I returned to Ethiopia, the young man had become a peer health educator and was conducting condom trainings within his own community, providing people with clear and accurate information about condoms and HIV transmission.
About The Condom Project
Mission Statement:
The CONDOM PROJECT seeks to explore new ways of distributing lifesaving information and protection to those communities at risk of contracting and transmitting the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
What they do:
TCP communicates the preventive power of condoms in the transmission of HIV using non-traditional approaches through art, performance and educational programs. Through this venue, they create a safe place where people can feel comfortable talking about condoms and how through proper usage, they are effective in preventing HIV infection.
For more information, visit the TCP website at www.thecondomproject.org.
TCP’s mailing address in the US is:
The Condom Project
121 East 10th St. Suite A
New York, NY 10003
HIV/AIDS Awareness Advocate Jerico Paterno: “The right to be free from being denied employment based on HIV status”
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Jerico Paterno
Community Health Outreach Worker: Pinoy Plus, Association
Living with HIV since 2005
“The right to be free from being denied employment based on HIV status”
It was in Dubai when Jerico first found out that he was HIV+. It was a surprise and an unfortunate turn of event Jerico who like many migrant workers dreamt of working abroad to give his family a better life.
“I took the HIV test as part of a pre-employment requirement. I was surprised to find that I tested positive. I had never shown signs of being sick.”, he recalls. There was little time for Jerico to get over his initial shock, he was immediately quarantined and deported back to the Philippines.
“I was frightened. I knew very little about HIV, and confused it with AIDS. I thought I didn’t have long to live.”
The issue of mandatory HIV testing as a condition of entry, stay or employment for migrant workers in their destination countries is a subject of debate in the international community. The Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility (CARAM Asia), a regional NGO that works on health issues and health issues, calls the policy and practice of mandatory testing for migrant workers “ discriminatory, dehumanizing and violates migrants’ rights.”
Jerico himself has played an active role in advocating migrant workers’ rights as a member of Pinoy Plus. Jerico has been invited to various international HIV/AIDS conferences in Switzerland and Indonesia to speak about his experience.
“Mandatory testing is just one of the forms of discrimination people living with HIV/AIDS face, there are many others.” stresses Jerico.
To uncover these other forms of human rights violations, Pinoy Plus’ together with the UNAIDS, is conducting a study called “The Stigma Index” where people living with HIV/AIDS were interviewed and asked to narrate the details of the own experiences of discrimination. The results of the study are slated for release in early 2010.
HIV/AIDS Awareness Advocates Task Force Pride: “The right to sexual orientation and gender”
Task 
Force Pride: The right to sexual orientation and gender
Queer Silver, Membership Committee
Dee Mendoza, Marketing Officer
Naomi, Public Relations Officer
Every year the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender) community take to the streets for Pride March for two reasons: to continue rallying for their human rights of and to celebrate LGBT life and culture. The Philippines has the distinction of holding the first ever Pride March in Asia back in 1994.
Dee, is also co-founder of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP), talks about the reason why she walks in Pride marches. “When I first started to manifest my real gender expression, I was fired from my job and in my desperation to find another I applied for those that were way below my qualifications. Sometimes, I would be told to my face. “Okay lang ang mga bading, pero hindi yun mga tulad mo.”.
Her academic credentials and professional experience as a manager were overshadowed by the disparity between the gender on her birth certificate and the gender she chose to express. Lucky for Dee, she found an equal opportunity employer whom she has been with for the last 6 years. “Society stereotypes us as entertainer, salons personnel, comedienne or prostitutes. There is nothing wrong with these professions,” Dee says, “I just dream of a different one like the rest of the people do.”
Naomi concurs with this, “When you decide to change something that people think is fundamentally immutable, like gender, you trouble their sense of certainty and stability. Quietly or blatantly, they will resent you for it; or worse they will punish you for it. It is this policing and punishing because of gender expression that marginalizes people like me. Years of discrimination impair our sense of self-worth, many of us agree to this convenient arrangement — us in the margins, the rest of society living a good life.”
Emphasizing the importance of Pride Marches, Naomi says, “Thankfully, many people like me are beginning to fight back and are demanding to be treated with equal dignity.”
Queersilver speaks about the discrimination she faces and which she, as a member of Lesbian Advocates of the Philippines, advocates. “We lesbians are a double minority – we’re women and we’re lesbians.”, says Queersilver who stresses that that this one reason why lesbians are often overlooked when it comes to HIV/AIDS intervention programs. “The WSW (Women who have sex with Women) may be a lot incident group, but we nonetheless, should have access to adequate and proper information about how to protect ourselves.”
HIV/AIDS Youth Advocate Rain: The youth have a right to be free of HIV/AIDS
Rainer Naldoza
Advocate and member of youth NGOs and development agencies
“The right of the youth to be free of HIV/AIDS”
As a youth advocate, Rain makes sure that UNFPA development projects for HIV/AIDS are attuned to the needs of the youth and the realities that they face as youth (ages 15 to 24 years old) living with HIV/AIDS. Read more
HIV/AIDS Awareness Advocate AJ: “The right to adequate health care”
AJ
Human Rights Advocate
“The right to adequate health support and services.”
When AJ came back to Manila after a year overseas, the last thing he expected was to receive an email requesting financial assistance to defray his friend, Vin’s, hospital expenses. AJ did not even know Vin was sick or that he was in the hospital. Read more
4th Post as Guest Blogger for The Pleasure Project: The pleasure of baring it all for a cause
Bali, the “island of the gods”, an indulgent pleasurable place of realization and enlightenment. To me, Bali will be all that and more. To me, Bali is my place of liberation and re-discovered passion.
Ever since I came back from the International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP9) held in Bali last August, my head has been bursting with ideas. Read more
The Manila Times : Passion
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I spent much of the long weekend working on the “Dare to Bare RED” photoshoot to celebrate World AIDS Day: meeting with the production crew, inviting other HIV/AIDS activists, explaining the concept to potential partners. Read more
Dare to Bare RED for HIV/AIDS Awareness
Up to 40% of new HIV cases involve Filipinos aged 15-40.
But 89% of young adults rarely think about HIV when considering sex and 41% even consider themselves at no risk of getting infected by HIV and or AIDS. Read more
The Manila Times: Keeping the Promise
By Ana Santos
I spent a bit of time thinking about what verb to use in relation to this year’s World AIDS Day theme: Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.
Celebrate or commemorate? As society continues to obsess with politesse, I wondered which would be the more politically correct term to use.
Then I decided it would be an injustice to use just one word, when both should be used together. World AIDS Day is both a commemoration and a celebration.
Every December 1, the world comes together to commemorate the estimated more than 25 million lives that the disease has claimed since 1981.
Data provided by UNAIDS shows that as of 2007, there are an estimated 33.2 million people living with HIV around the world; 2 million of whom are children.
When you talk to those who were already of age during the 1980s, they will speak about the sheer terror of friends dying one by one, succumbing to a mysterious disease that they knew nothing about. This lack of knowledge spawned rumors and speculation and the atmosphere was rife with fear and paranoia.
There was talk that you could get AIDS from a soiled toilet seat, from a handshake, from a sneeze.
People living with AIDS not only suffered the physical pains of the disease, but also the disdain and judgment of society in general. In the movie, “Philadelphia,” Tom Hanks played lawyer, Geoffrey Bowers, who sued his firm for unfairly dismissing him because of his condition. It was one of first AIDS discrimination cases ever to be documented. Denzel Washington played his homophobic lawyer who had himself tested after shaking hands with Hanks, fearing that AIDS could be transmitted by handshake. In the movie, Geoffrey Bowers won his case, but passed away shortly after.
World AIDS Day is meant to commemorate the memory of people like Geoffrey Bowers.
There have been many advances in the world of AIDS since then—the linking of HIV as the virus that causes AIDS and basic information about how the infection is spread. These developments have considerably lessened the stigma, condemnation, and other forms of judgment associated with HIV/AIDS.
In the scientific front, the discovery of anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy has come to mean that HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence. Other scientific advancements include:
• The average number of years that people living with HIV are estimated to survive treatment has been increased from 9 to 11 years.
• A number of countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, have expanded and improved their HIV surveillance systems, and are conducting new, more accurate studies. Data from these studies aid better understanding of the global AIDS epidemic.
In the AIDS Vaccine 2009 Conference this week in Paris, the results of research showing that a vaccine for HIV may be close to be being developed will be discussed.
And for these reasons, World AIDS Day is a day of celebration. Many barriers have been broken down, but there are many more to overcome.
In the Philippines, the country’s HIV/AIDS incidence classification as “low incidence” has been changed to “hidden and growing.” In the first ever MSM/TG (Men Who Have Sex with Men/Transgender) National Conference held last July, there were 85 new HIV infections confirmed by the Philippine HIV and AIDS Registry in the month of May alone. This is a 143-percent increase compared to the same period last year (an average of 35 cases per month) and the highest ever reported number in a single month.
Since the first reported case of HIV in 1984, there have been a total of 3,911 HIV cases registered in the Philippine HIV and AIDS Registry.
These are indications that in the Philippines, the battle for better understanding and informed choice, universal access to health care services is just beginning.
And this is exactly why we have to continue to keep the promise to stop AIDS and find a cure.
A group of HIV/AIDS activists and people living with HIV/AIDS are putting together a photo shoot and inviting others to wear the AIDS Red Ribbon on their semi-nude or nude bodies to show the purity and passion behind their promise to support HIV/AIDS.
It happens on November 8, Sunday, at Victoria Court, Pasig.
For details, call 0917-886-4862 or visit www.anasantoswrites.com.
World AIDS Day 2009: First MSM/TG National Conference
Photo courtesy of Outrage Magazine
Photo courtesy of Outrage Magazine
It’s 33 days before World AIDS Day 2009.