Results of Red Cap Cafe

Our project has really snowballed and from the feedback and conversations and PHAs sharing their experiences and personal stories, it is finally getting a goal, and from that a plan is coming together.  I know that as a PHA community when we know that this project is a PHA project created by PHAs for PHAs then how can it fail. 

It is going to be a way to get to know who really makes up our community and the tools that are needed to educate ourselves and others, so that we can finally be in control of our own lives. And many are going to say that because I am gay that this movement is a gay movement but we already have people from different communities within our community working together to make this happen. 

But if this is going to work than every single one of us PHA’s have to take part or this will never happen!

And are you going to accept the fact that we will have to keep on living with the stigma of being HIV+!

However when we die, since so many of us are now living longer because of the new medications we end up dying of cancer or heart attack.  When we die in most cases the recorded reason for our death is cancer, heart attack.  When then happens is that the government get a lower recording of HIV deaths and the funding stops. 

But the irony about this is that the disease is still spreading rampant throughout not just the gay community as it had 25 years ago but through each and every community that makes up the over 62,000 of PHA just in Canada alone. 

Where the Cafe Idea came from

I have been to a Leadership conference and it changed my life.  And one of the ways we got to know each other was by us telling our personal stories. So in order for my community to understand me and accept me then they must get to know me.  So here is my personal story Results of Red Cap Cafe.

My Personal Story

My name is Kyle Vose I was born in Toronto and come from a United Kingdom background.  I grew in Jane and Finch and many will say it must have been horrible.  I was the minority and yet it was the best years of my life, I learned so much from experiencing other cultures and as my mother always taught us that there is always something that we can learn from another’s culture and just because they are different than us, that does not make what they believe or how they live wrong.  We can always learn a new way of thinking or a new way of doing something.  Imagine learning an easier way to get something done.

When I was 22 my youngest son was born and when he was three months old I was diagnosed with type II B Hodgkin’s disease which is cancer of the immune system.  When my son was about 7 months I was told that the chemo was not working and that I had about 6 months to live.  I started taking a natural herb and the chemo and here I am fourteen years later with a very weak immune system.  Three days after my 30 birthday I was informed that I had been co-infected HIV and Hep B; I thought my life was over how I was going to survive this.  Three years later Bowen’s disease a form of skin cancer, three months later Thyroid and just last year three days after my 35 birthday a massive heart attack, I thought that what else could go wrong boy was I wrong Diabetes.    

I am still here and I work hard in my community and you can ask any of my many friends that I love to help them in any way I can.  I have held someone’s hand to give them strength, I have held someone who need cuddling, I have offered advice and listened to them rage after being discriminated against because of their status.  I share my wealth of knowledge and as a result tried to educate them so they can make better choices and not need me so much and they have become very self sufficient and independent.  Instead of doing something for then I taught them how to do it for themselves.  But if you don’t know who to ask and can’t afford to take classes how can we ever get out of the rut we are stuck in.

Hungry City Campaign

So I learned all I could from working on the hungry city campaign and soon realized that we did not reach the goal of 50,000 signatures but still got the attention of the government.  How by telling our personal stories to the media, to anyone who would listen and getting support from the agencies fighting for my rights.  I then realized getting to know the staff the only problem was that many of them had university education but no real life experience of the reasons that they were fighting for was not a personal issue but a job, we were at least lucky that their hearts were in it though.

I really learned to connect with your community because then your community would want to help and support you.  What community would turn on itself and destroy itself.  I went on the leadership retreat and got to meet such a small but wonderful group of my community we were all the same HIV+.  Some of us were black, some white, some gay, some parents, some old, some young but the one thing that we all were was that we were all HIV+ finally a community but only for the weekend.  The majority of us are still friend and connect and do things together and we help each other out and in reality have become closer than my own family.  I learned that if we are HIV+ than this is our family as we all share the same disease but we don’t know who they are.

Articles that I have been interviewed for:

http://www.thestar.com/article/257113

http://www.thestar.com/Article/416235

What I learned from the long term survivor

I can only thank God or the Universe that I did not get infected when HIV first arrived.  The horror stories of what people went through with the hospitals, funeral homes, and their own families. 

But I also learned how they were able to survive without the AID service Organizations and how they really got started.  They were built with the sweat and blood of the community that this disease was attacking first. They were in reality created by people meeting in living rooms and coffee shops, and within the gay community the collected money held fundraisers and got the ball rolling.

So I asked myself what is difference today why are we no closer and why have we not moved ahead since then. 

What I learned from my own private Cafe’s

I learned that if we can sit in groups where we sit in comfortable places. We can have real in-dept conversations and be able to bring up different subjects that affect our community.  We can get other’s opinions and personal stories and if we did not understand something we asked questions. Then another would tell maybe a similar story and give a different point of view or experience.  Between all of the conversations we all get a better understanding of the issue and see all sides of the problem and come up with an idea on how we would fix the problem, or a suggestion to fix the problem. 

The only problem is that is usually goes not further than here and nothing usually get done about the issue.  If you try to bring a group together in order to gets the conversation going there needs to be a comfortable feeling with the group.  Think about when you have a group of your friends over and talk about the news or a personal problem.  This is an example cafe!!

Problems that were discussed

Government funding

When we die it is mainly recorded as because of cancer or heart disease. But in reality it is because of the way this disease attacks our bodies and with the side effects of the medication we take, and that these issues help cause the cancer and heart attacks.  Therefore the medical society reports the death as cancer and not HIV and the funding for HIV gets cut according. 

And with the government taking funding from the HIV community and using that money to finding a vaccine to prevent HIV; which to me is a slap in my face as it sends a clear message that for those of us who are HIV+ to bad for you, you have made your bed now lie in it and to those who might get infected not to worry we are working on a way to protect you from them.

Would it not be less on the system to find a way to educate, and to slow the spread and find a cure so that we won’t be disabled any longer and can return to living our lives?

Imagine telling someone who has cancer that as there is no cure and they are not going to waste any more money on a cure.   Instead they are using the funds to help those who don’t even have cancer and might never be effected with cancer, on a cancer vaccine just in case.  So if you are positive than to bad, that’s your problem, but to those that are negative we are going to protect you from getting this disease, when protection and proper education is the answer.

The Federal Government is cutting HIV funding

We as PHA Leaders in our Communities, are working together to get the media involved, because the cuts will only mean that HIV education and the services provided by the ASO are going to be cut and you the public is going to suffer.

The more the public is aware of the issues then we can get the proper attention needed to support all of our communities in the fight against the spread of HIV! 

Contact your local newspaper and ask to print an article on the cut backs and the need for public awareness of the ever growing epidemic of the HIV disease as it is still climbing, and there is no need for HIV to be still spreading in this day and age (SO SPEAK UP AND Loud about HIV)
 
Check out this web site www.increaseaidsfunding.ca/ 

Ontario Disability Support Plan

The government says that there is a safety net in case we should ever need it but the truth is that this is really a spider’s net.  Once you are in it there is no escaping it.  I remember watching the show “Good Times”.  They were talking about this issue and Felona called it the “one step forward and two steps back rule” and it is true the government makes you take two steps back for every step forward we try to make.  I mean who would want to go and work, because when you go and get a job and make $100 the government takes a cutback of 50% than housing will take 30% of that you’re left over with only $20 so we would have worked two days for only $20.  I am sick not stupid!!

Then we have to look at the issues of how we can support our own communities when we don’t receive enough on ODSP to live on.  Most of us depend on food banks and free lunches in order to survive and many go with the basics of life in order to survive.  A microwave may not seem like a luxury but when you receive food for life (same as meals on wheels) at 4 pm and you can’t take your med’s until 6 pm.  Because of our health conditions we must eat our food properly or risk the chances of getting bacteria infection from eating unheated food. 

ODSP rates

ODSP Case Type  

Maximum Shelter Allowance      Maximum Amount Monthly

Single Disabled Person

        $444                               $999

Single Disabled Person + 1 Child  

        $698                              $1526

Single Disabled Person + 2 Child   

        $798                              $1758

Single Disabled Person + spouse

       $698                             $1518

Single Disabled Person + spouse +1 Child

       $758                             $1697

So if you don’t live in something right now that is below or equals the maximum shelter allowance you will need to be living in housing! 70,000 people have already applied for housing in just Toronto alone that means a waiting period of approximately 10 years if you were to apply today.

Groups that support a change in ODSP and OW

www.socialplanningtoronto.org/25in5/index.html

www.hungrycity.ca

www.odspaction.ca

Ontario Coalition Social Justice Assembly May 10
 
FROM POVERTY TO ECONOMIC SECURITY
A Forum to Reduce Poverty in Ontario
 
Saturday, May 10, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
at USWA Hall, 25 Cecil St, Toronto
[south of College St., and 2 blocks west of subway stop at College &
University]
 
Agenda highlights (more info to follow):
 
•        Shine a light on poverty in the province
•        Recommend ways to reduce poverty and increase social justice
•        Learn about the Provincial Government's plans for poverty
reduction -- with Cheri DiNovo, MPP (Parkdale-High Park) and we have also
invited the Cabinet Committee on Poverty Reduction to send a
representative.
•        Mobilize for public input into the process
 
Open at no cost to all activists interested in social justice -- labour,
student, aboriginal, women, ethno-racial, and other equity-seeking groups
 

(I would like to sit down with the Minister in charge of ODSP and OW and discuss issues that affect these policies and our solutions to help fix these problems.)