Project assists deaf people living with HIV/AIDS
Nov. 29, 2007
A UMNS Report By Judith Santiago*
Several times a year, a small group of HIV/AIDS survivors gather in Baltimore to share their personal journeys within a community of deaf people.
The Quality of Life retreat is a United Methodist-supported program offering encouragement and hope to deaf people living with HIV/AIDS. It also raises awareness about the disease's high transmission rate among the deaf.
"HIV/AIDS cases are four times higher in the deaf community than in the hearing community," said Carol Stevens, coordinator of The Deaf Shalom Zone, a ministry of Christ United Methodist Church of the Deaf in Baltimore, which facilitates the retreat.
The Quality of Life retreat is a special project of the United Methodist Baltimore-Washington Annual (regional) Conference. Additional support comes from the Board of Global Ministries, the denomination's mission agency.
Open to anyone, the retreat is designed to empower participants with life strategies that help them live with HIV/AIDS.
"My experience at the Quality of Life retreat was so great. It helped me to find myself, my inner place, my spiritual home, my peace, my purpose in life," signed the Rev. Harry Woosley Jr., leader of the deaf AIDS community in Baltimore. "I want to help others to find life like I have."
Woosley was sponsored and provided with interpreters to attend the retreat. He is educating three high-risk groups about AIDS-deaf-blind people, a group of deaf inner-city young people and deaf people living in group homes.
The retreat offers a safe, loving environment in which participants can be themselves, free of fears and inhibitions, and can openly discuss their deepest concerns and challenges about living with HIV/AIDS.
Participants can interact with other HIV-positive people and learn strategies for long-term survival.
Agencies that provide services to hearing individuals are often inaccessible to the deaf, so The Deaf Shalom Zone includes case management services for deaf people living with HIV/AIDS. Case managers assist people who have contracted the disease but have no health insurance, medical care, medication or financial support and help them gain independence.
For more information, visit http://deafshalomzone.org/, The Deaf Shalom Zone Web site.
*Santiago is an UMCOR staff member.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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United Methodist News Service Photos and stories also available at: http://umns.umc.org
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