October 23, 2006VOL. 44, NO. 18Oakland, CA

Alameda AIDS ministry reaches out to teens

By Sharon Abercrombie
Staff writer

“Let’s go get tested.”

Those were the words uttered by a couple of frightened St. Joseph /Notre Dame High School students in Alameda last spring, as they left a gathering held in St. Joseph Basilica. The kids had just heard a young HIV-positive adult speak about the effects of the illness on his life. He had contracted the virus while in high school.

The man had been invited by HIV-AIDS Education and Outreach Ministry of Alameda to tell his own story and to answer anonymously written questions from the kids. The ministry is a deanery-wide outreach supported by St. Albert, St. Barnabas, St. Joseph and St. Philip Neri parishes.

The speaker told the students that there is no vaccine for HIV/AIDS. His illness cannot be cured. So he faces a regime of around the-clock, life-extending medications--powerful potions which come with their own sickening side effects.
During the assembly the students learned that 60 million people worldwide have been infected with the virus and 26 million have died during the past 25 years. They learned that 25 percent of all new HIV cases in the U.S. occur in people under the age of 21.

For the two students and their classmates, that particular gathering might have been the most significant of their young lives, especially if the man’s story motivated them to get tested and to stop being sexually irresponsible.

Which is exactly what Sue Spiersch, a parishioner at St. Joseph’s, and Cath Sullivan, her ministry colleague from St. Barnabas, are hoping will happen. They want to break down the wall of invincibility which convinces teens and young adults that “it won’t happen to me.” They want these kids to know the ugly, frightening facts of what HIV and other STDs can do to their young, vulnerable bodies.

“The most powerful thing we can do is to listen to HIV-positive young people,” said Spiersch. To hear someone very nearly their own age who is living with the virus and who also can give them the facts about other kinds of STD’s “brings them up short,” she said.

Sullivan and Spiersch serve as the co-chairs for this ministry, which was founded in 1993. The group began with 25 volunteers who, through the years, have delivered meals to people suffering from AIDS, driven them to doctors’ appointments, run errands, and helped families link up to service providers. Presently, the group stands at 10 and more volunteers are needed, said Sullivan.

Many of the original helpers joined after losing family members to AIDS, but when their lives changed, and they worked through their grief, they moved on. Others burned out from seeing so many friends and relatives die of the disease.

The volunteers have been responsible for a wide spectrum of services during the past 13 years. They have delivered 26,647 meals. There have also been over 2,100 bags of groceries donated by parishes and delivered to clients.

Through its emotional and spiritual care, the ministry has sponsored 12 interfaith services involving pastors and members of more than a dozen 15 Alameda churches. Volunteers have amassed over 21,400 caregiver hours and facilitated over 1,450 grief sessions.

They also participate each July in the annual AIDS Walk in San Francisco, which raises millions of dollars for social service agencies who work with AIDS sufferers and their families.

The outreach to young people and their parents is the group’s newest project. Here’s why: In a national survey by SIECUS conducted several years ago on teenage sexual activity, teenagers have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases of any age group. The survey also reports that the estimated number of AIDS diagnoses through 2002 in children under the age of 13 is 9,300 in the U.S. alone. A little over six percent of students reported initiating intercourse before age 13.

When these new statistics about youth came out, volunteers decided to expand their ministry. The group applied for grants and sponsored rummage and bake sales so they could purchase age-appropriate educational videos for school libraries. They raised over $4,000.

Thanks to the ministry, the videos, which were produced by the Education and Training Resources, (ETR), a non-profit health education organization, now occupy the shelves of every middle and high school library in the City of Alameda, parochial as well as public schools.

On the church side, the videos had to be approved by pastors and then school principals. In public schools, local school boards had to okay them. “It was a long process,” said Sullivan.

The ministry keeps two sets of the videos to loan out to parents. Some of the titles for high schoolers include: “HIV and Teens: Remembering Krista Blake,” “STD’s Straight Talk,” “The Truth About Sex,” and “STD’s, AIDS and The Clean Love Solution.” There are also videos for grades four through six, including “HIV and AIDS: Staying Safe.”

The videos underscore the need for abstinence as the best way to stop the spread of HIV, and they provide information on how the virus gets transmitted: through having unprotected sex and through sharing needles with someone who is HIV-positive.

“If we could just get this information out to enough people, we could stop the spread of HIV-AIDS with this generation of school kids,” said Sullivan.

The videos also deal with the prejudice against people with AIDS, and dispel myths as to how the disease is spread – for example, through sharing the same cup of water.

After the St. Joseph Notre Dame High School assembly, parish ministry members distributed handouts with information about the videos. Spiersch said a mom quickly phoned her about borrowing some of them. The mom then organized a pizza party for several of her son’s friends and their parents. They watched the films and then discussed what they had seen.

To borrow the videos, contact Sue Spiersch at (510) 522-8431 or Cath Sullivan at (510) 865-3051.

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