Aid for AIDS

Jaime Valencia: Scientific Mind, Warm Heart

There are doctors, and there are doctors. There are the kind of doctors who announce to you from the moment you meet them that they are doctors, in their self-confident behaviors and snobbish attitudes.  Jaime Valencia, the Director of Operations at AID FOR AIDS, used to be that kind of doctor.
“When I was practicing medicine back in Colombia, I carried myself with that sort of pride in my position in society,” he says. “But that was a long time ago.”  Today, Dr. Jaime Valencia presents a more informal profile to the world. To his colleagues and associates in the U.S. and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, he is just Jaime. And he likes it that way.
“Like most of our staff, I started with AID FOR AIDS as a volunteer, counting pills and doing whatever was needed to keep us going and help our clients survive,” he explains. “You learn quickly in the nonprofit world that there’s no room for big egos and people who care mostly about money and job status. With HIV and AIDS, you’re dealing with people’s deepest emotions, and if you place yourself above them and deny the humanity of it all, you don’t belong in this world.”
“Jaime is the ultimate people person,” notes his boss, AFAI executive director Jesus Aguais. “He has a doctor’s scientific mind, but there’s nothing cold about his heart.”
Jaime, a native of Colombia, obtained his medical degree in Ecuador in 1992, before returning to his home country to begin his career. For several years, he split his time between a family practice and working in a public hospital, where he came to specialize in the treatment of infectious diseases. At the time, HIV was just beginning to emerge as a significant problem in Latin America. Most medical professionals in Colombia, says Jaime, saw HIV as an American or African epidemic.
In 1999, Jaime arrived in America on a tourist visa, and was introduced to Jesus Aguais.  When the former medical coordinator of the AIDS Treatment Access Program (ATAP) left the organization, Jaime agreed to step into that role on a temporary basis, which soon became a permanent basis.  As ATAP medical coordinator, he was (and still is) charged with reviewing all applications for antiretroviral medication from clients in developing nations, approving or rejecting those applications, and consulting with the treating physicians in each country. 
However, not content with a strict office job, Jaime launched an ambitious effort to train thousands of healthcare workers throughout Latin America and the Caribbean in HIV and AIDS. Under the “Healthcare Professionals Training Program,” Jaime and his assembled team of medical specialists from the U.S. traveled regularly to developing LAC countries, where they ran HIV seminars and workshops for doctors, nurses, psychologists and medical social workers.
“The people we have trained over the years were mainly medical generalists who knew very little about HIV transmission, treatment options or preventive strategies,” Jaime says. “I think the information we brought to those medical professionals has had a huge impact on improving the quality of care in the region.”
And, gradually, as AFAI began expanding its roster of services over the next five years, Jaime’s duties grew in several major new directions. He currently oversees the “Cuanto Sabes?” HIV preventive education program for adolescents, the Children’s Program (which serves hundreds of youngsters living with HIV) and the New York Immigrant AIDS Link (NYIAL) case management program.  His title was elevated to Director of Operations to reflect all these additional responsibilities.
Jaime’s healthcare background is essential in managing all these programs, as every AFAI initiative is somehow grounded in medicine. However, his previous experience and expertise did not prepare him for the multitude of managerial duties involved in directing a staff of more than 80 people in a dozen or more countries.
“Management-wise, I was in way over my head,” he confesses. “I had to learn an awful lot of skills on the fly.”  To shore up his administrative and personnel management skills, for example, he went back to school to study nonprofit management at New York’s Baruch College of business.
“I think this is one of the most impressive things about Jaime,” argues Jesus. “That is his willingness and commitment to continuing his education and developing new capabilities.  His role here has grown to the point where he is now a foundation pillar of this organization.”
When asked about an eventual return to a more lucrative private practice Jaime responded:
“There is something truly special and rewarding about nonprofit work, about sharing a mission with everyone in the organization and working together to make it a reality… I think at AID FOR AIDS I’m right where I belong.”     
 

Eduardo Guzman – The Man Behind The Message

“I guess one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in life is how powerful information can be,” says Eduardo Guzman, a native of Mexico who joined AID FOR AIDS in 2009. “Information and how you deliver it is a key to everything we do. We have a million stories here that need to be told. My job is to make sure they are told to the right people in the right words.”

Eduardo, whose official title is Programs and Development Manager, is, in fact, a sort of one-man nerve center of the organization. Up to this writing, he has operated mostly in the background, feverishly working the phones, hatching innovative promotional ideas in his office cubicle, and juggling a half-dozen or more projects at a time. As multi-taskers go, Eduardo is a grandmaster.
“For any organization to succeed, you need people behind the scenes who can handle lots of tasks without losing their enthusiasm and creative spark,” says Jesus Aguais, AFAI’s founder and executive director. “Eduardo has that gift. No matter how many responsibilities I pile on him, he keeps coming up with exciting new ideas and promotions.”   

Eduardo came to the U.S. in 2001 and attended Eastern Connecticut State University, where he obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications and Political Science. His next academic stop was the prestigious London School of Economics, where he earned a Master’s in Global Politics, with a particular focus on human rights issues.
Upon graduation, Eduardo aimed to leverage his impressive academic credentials into a distinguished career at the United Nations or other prominent geo-political organization. But his ambitions underwent a major change in March, 2009, when he was introduced to AID FOR AIDS International by a representative of the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Though he knew little about HIV, and AID FOR AIDS was a far cry from a high-profile, globe-trotting job at the U.N., Eduardo found that AFAI’s mission fit perfectly with his studies in global politics and human rights, and his need to be where the action is.

Starting as a Program Coordinator in support of AFAI’s Access to Treatment initiatives and Education Programs, Eduardo eventually found his true niche in programs and development.
“I like to be moving around, to be constantly confronted with new projects and challenges,” he says. In his current job, Eduardo is always on the move, formulating AID FOR AIDS’ communications strategy, working with corporate and individual donors, and creating and managing strategic partnerships. This process represents a delicate and complex dance, requiring each partner to adapt its own needs to the wishes and goals of the other. Sustaining a single marriage is hard enough; Eduardo has to practice corporate polygamy. 
Over the past few weeks, Eduardo was a virtual whirlwind around the office, running from desk to desk, pulling together the team that mounted the 10th annual 2011 My Hero Gala. Now that the gala—which was enormously successful in raising funds and awareness of AFAI’s mission – is over, you would expect him to kick back a little and relax. But “relax” is not a word that comes easily to Eduardo.
“There are so many demands on my time now, so many deadlines, so many details that need to get done right and promptly,” he explains. “Working in the nonprofit world, you find yourself wishing you had more resources to hire assistants who could handle that load. But, in the end, when you get something done, the results make the whole effort worthwhile.”

Like all his AFAI colleagues, he has come to see his work here as not just a job, but a labor of love. For right now, it seems, he has found a home outside the geopolitical mainstream.
“This place just grows on you,” concludes Eduardo. “You may come here looking to fill a blank space on your resume, but once you’re here, you can be sure that AID FOR AIDS’ great cause will become your cause. That’s what happened to me.”

Jonathan Capote – Having Fun Helping People

On the morning after the New York Gay Pride Parade last June, Jonathan Capote floated into the AID FOR AIDS office on a mighty cloud of joy.
“It was amazing,” raved the case manager for the New York Immigrant AIDS Link (NYIAL) program, describing his first Gay Pride march. “To see all those people —gay, lesbian, transgender, straight people –laughing and dancing down the street, celebrating themselves and each other.  It was just a great day to be alive.”
But while the parade experience was a singular one for Jonathan, his emotional response to the event was business as usual to his office colleagues. Jonathan’s enthusiasm, optimism and deep affection for his fellow human beings are on display here every day.
“We’re all passionate about what we do here, but not everyone is demonstrative…Jonathan is always excited, always bubbling over with energy,” says Dario Jimenez, another case manager at AFAI.  “I think one of the reasons is that he’s so young. Life is still so exciting to him.”
Jonathan believes that the energy he exudes on the job helps him connect more effectively with clients. “HIV is not the end of the world,” he explains. “My first task as a case manager is to get clients to see that and embrace all the good things they still have. If the person they see when they walk into this office is someone who loves being alive, maybe that will help motivate them to take a positive attitude and realize how much control they still have over their own lives.”
Jonathan, born and raised in Spain, graduated from the University of Granada in 2007 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work. He began his career working with the homeless population in Madrid, but he ultimately decided that America offered greater opportunities for professional education and advancement in the social service field. In 2009, he emigrated to the U.S. and in June, 2010, he joined AID FOR AIDS International as an intern.  Last December, Jonathan was hired as a full-time case manager for NYIAL, serving Spanish-speaking immigrants in New York City who are living with HIV or AIDS.
In his job, Jonathan deals with a very wide range of client issues, including immigration, housing, access to medical treatment, HIV education, and much more. He helps facilitate the regular MSM (men who have sex with men) support group and AFAI’s monthly legal clinic. The job frustrations in handling a case load of 120 people are great, but so are the rewards.
“I had a client who had lost his rent assistance tell me he was going to go home and commit suicide,” Jonathan recalls. “When he left the office, I called 911, and the emergency medical technicians went to his apartment and took him to the hospital…he was furious at me at first, but later he told me, ‘You were right…the rent isn’t worth dying over.’ I left work that day feeling really great.”
But, when all is said and done, says Jonathan, his success on the job is measured by how well he makes himself obsolete.
“That is the true test, to see a client become an independent person,” concludes Jonathan. “Of course, I’ll still be here for him or her, but nothing makes me feel better than when the client takes full control and doesn’t need me anymore.”

Liliana Velásquez:  Seeing The World As One

When she was new at AID FOR AIDS International (AFAI) back in 2008, Liliana Velasquez was the recipient of some words of wisdom from executive director Jesus Aguais.
“We were coming out of the building where I had been photographing our board members at a cocktail reception,” recalls the manager of AFAI’s marketing and recycling programs. “And Jesus turned to me and said, ‘When you leave here one day, you are going to find yourself changed forever. You’re going to see the world, and all the people in that world, in a whole new way.’”
Soon enough, Liliana came to see what Jesus was talking about. In a single day on the job, she would go from strategic marketing meetings with AFAI’s corporate partners to addressing ragtag groups of recovering drug addicts living with HIV on the fringes of New York’s meanest streets. The aim: to get them to consider donating their unused and unexpired medicine to the recycling program, rather than selling it on the street or throwing it away. 
“At first, it was scary,” she admits. “I had never really come face to face with people at the bottom of the social ladder. But, gradually, I came to understand that the differences in wealth and table manners are only skin deep. Under the skin, we are all the same. That may not seem like an especially profound concept, but I think that knowledge of the oneness of humanity is the greatest gift I’ve received from working here.”
That knowledge is essential in the performance of her job as Recycling Program and Marketing Manager, where Liliana is currently spearheading the upcoming nationwide medicine donation drive, to be held August 18-25. As always, Liliana finds herself interacting with a large cross-section of the HIV community – individual donors, local AIDS organizations, physicians and health clinics, and corporations. She manages to segue smoothly among all these constituencies, delivering one powerful, but simple message: recycling saves lives.
“The key is to stay focused on the mission, which is to increase donations of antiretroviral medication,” she says. “That entails first creating awareness of our program in the community and, once that awareness exists, expanding our medicine collection network across the country.”
During her tenure in her job at AFAI, Liliana has helped expand the number of drop-off collection points to 17, covering much of the East Coast and parts of the South and Midwest. She hopes the August campaign will encourage more organizations to sign on to the AFAI collection network.
Her role as marketing manager dovetails neatly with the recycling work, as it also involves creating awareness in the community. Her marketing duties include managing the AFAI Website; designing all of AFAI’s external communications (newsletters, flyers, t-shirts, etc.); and serving as unofficial staff photographer. Liliana has represented AFAI at a number of local and national events such as the U.S. Conference on HIV in San Francisco two years ago. You can still hear the pride in her voice when she recalls that experience.
Liliana emigrated to America from her native Colombia in 2002, after earning a Bachelor’s Degree in marketing and advertising and working for several years in banking. Prior to joining AFAI as an intern, she worked as a freelance graphic designer in New York, and took courses on Graphic Design and Media at New York University and the School of Visual Arts.
She continues to hone both her graphics and people skills, and sees the two skill sets as complementary. “It’s all about communication,” she insists. “Taking your talents and using them to help people.”
Jesus Aguais says the message he imparted to Liliana all those years ago is the same one he has given to many others who have passed through AFAI’s offices over the past 15 years.
“Liliana really gets it,” says Jesus. “She understands what connects us all to one another. And that’s why she’s so good at connecting with people.”

David Mosquera – Aid For Aids International’s Star Volunteer, Our Face In The Community

Often, while conducting educational workshops on HIV, David Mosquera will look out into his audience and see a bunch of blank faces.
“I used to think that these people weren’t listening or, if they were listening, that they really didn’t care about what I was saying,” explains the soft-spoken outreach coordinator who has been volunteering for the New York Immigrant AIDS Link (NYIAL) program since 2009. “But I was very wrong. Once the workshop was over, the same people would come up to me and ask all kinds of questions. They had been listening intently all along. They just didn’t want to show it in front of the rest of the audience.”
It is just one of many small lessons about human behavior that the 37 year-old Ecuadorian native has learned in his 2 years at NYIAL, working with Spanish-speaking immigrants in New York City who are living with HIV or AIDS. For example, he’s received a lifetime’s worth of education on empathic listening, and he could write a book about the value of compassion in breaking down clients’ resistance to help. 
“This has been the experience of my life,” he says when referring to his activities with AID FOR AIDS International in New York. “I love spending my time helping the community through AID FOR AIDS because I know what I do is a very important contribution to a great cause.”
What David is doing right now is keeping him pretty busy. His outreach duties include addressing community groups, health care providers and social service organizations throughout the five boroughs of New York, to make them aware of NYIAL’s considerable array of case management services. In addition, on Tuesdays and Thursdays David visits the Mexican Consulate in Manhattan, as part of the consulate’s “Window Of Health” program. In that capacity, he conducts one-on-one and group HIV education workshops, and performs HIV testing on about 16 individuals a week. David hopes this program will eventually be expanded to other Latin American and Caribbean consular offices in New York.
“People come in to get their passports or birth certificates and wind up getting a lot more help than they ever expected,” he notes.
David also directs NYIAL’s popular monthly legal clinics, which are staffed by two attorneys from the NYC Legal Aid Society, who offer assistance on a wide range of legal issues. And David facilitates the MSM (men who have sex with men) support group that meets periodically.
“What I think makes AID FOR AIDS special is that no one here is treated like a number; not the clients or the staff,” concludes David. “Whatever might be going on within the organization, no one ever loses sight of the individual.” 

Eduardo Hernandez:  His Own Person

At AID FOR AIDS, we speak a lot about the concept of Empowerment – helping people find the tools and the strength to take control of their own lives.  Rich, full lives that are not solely defined by their HIV status.
Meet Eduardo Hernandez, the coordinator of AFAI’s Treatment Access Program, which provides free antiretroviral medication to people living with HIV/AIDS in 35 developing nations.
“If I had to say just one thing about Eduardo, it would be that he is an individual who would live his life exactly the same way if he wasn’t HIV-positive,” says Dr. Jaime Valencia, AFAI’s director of operations and Eduardo’s boss. “He would still be out there fighting for people with HIV and AIDS. He would still behave the same way in his personal life. He is totally his own person.”
Eduardo, himself, is not one to revel in his status as role model and destroyer of stereotypes – as an HIV+ heterosexual (engaged to his longtime girlfriend in Colombia), with an undetectable viral load. Eduardo is more about coming to the office each day and doing his job, which, at its essence, is all about empowering clients.
“It begins with people in deep trouble, who are stranded out there without the means of survival,” he explains. “We give them access to the medical treatment they need, and once they have that access, they can take responsibility for caring for themselves. What I like most about my job is that moment when the client takes the control.”
Eduardo, after a stint in the insurance business (which wasn’t his cup of tea ), went to work in 1998 at AFA’s Treatment Access Program in his native Venezuela. Two years later, he emigrated to the U.S. and AFA’s New York headquarters, where he became an assistant in the medication storage facility. In 2009, he was promoted to his current position, which requires a fluid mix of people and administrative skills.
The program coordinator is responsible for initial screening of the client application, verifying all the information on the form, including the identity of the client and the treating physician, the client’s viral load and other personal data. The coordinator then enters the application into a computer system. If the application is accepted after an evaluation by the program’s medical team, Eduardo coordinates delivery of the antiretroviral medication with the client and his doctor.  Over the long course of treatment, Eduardo is in regular touch with clients and doctors, encouraging and supporting the clients’ efforts to maintain adherence to that treatment. He also manages an increasingly large and complex computer database.
The current shortfall in medication donations, which limits AFA’s ability to serve all the people applying for help, is, of course, a major source of frustration to Eduardo and the entire organization. But Eduardo has his own way of dealing with those feelings.
“My release is arguing with Jaime and Jesus (Aguais, AFA’s founder and executive director),” he says, half-jokingly. “We’re all very passionate about what we do, and sometimes we look at things differently. Fighting can help relieve the tension of the job. But, in the end, we always come to agreement.”

Dario Jimenez—Turning fear into hope

When clients of the New York Immigrant AIDS Link (NYIAL) program show up at AFAI headquarters for their initial intake visit, they tend to be overwhelmed by their circumstances and lost in confusion.
“Many have just been diagnosed, and not only do they not know where to turn for help, they may not even know anything about HIV itself,” explains Dario Jimenez, a NYIAL case manager. “They come in believing that they will die in 2 or 3 months. They are very frightened and very depressed.”

What the clients – Spanish-speaking immigrants in New York City living with HIV or AIDS – need most at this critical time is someone who can calm their fears, give them the correct information, and empower them right from the start with a concrete plan to deal with their problems. Dario Jimenez is that someone.

“I’m a pretty calm and focused kind of person,” says the former bank manager from Honduras. “Hopefully, in that first 45-minute, face-to-face session, I can help the clients to realize that they still have control over their lives and get them involved in creating a plan that addresses each problem step by step. You can’t solve every problem at once, but once the client begins to feel that good things are possible, he can walk out of here with hope.”

However, to keep that hope alive, continues Jimenez, the client needs to see progress. NYIAL puts a premium on follow-up.  “If the plan calls for a referral to another organization for a specific service, like assistance with immigration, finances or housing, you need to keep calling the client and the organization to make sure the work is getting done,” explains Jimenez.
Well before he came to the U.S. five years ago, Jimenez was familiar with the concept of client service from his career in banking.  But once he arrived here, he decided that was more to life than savings accounts and certified checks. Two years ago, he came to AFAI as a volunteer outreach worker, conducting HIV testing and speaking to community groups. Last September, he accepted a full-time position as NYIAL case manager. He feels right at home in that role.

“I know what it’s like to face barriers, like a new language and new culture, and that helps me connect with my clients,” he says. “Any time a service is done, when a client finds an apartment or the right medical care, I leave here at the end of the day feeling good.”

If there is one frustrating element of his job, adds Jimenez, it is that, with nearly 90 clients, it is impossible to maintain the close personal contacts dating from the initial visits. But, in keeping with his calm and even-tempered personality, Dario Jimenez doesn’t let his frustrations get the better of him.
“This job is all about results,” he concludes. “When the results are good, so are we.”

Enrique Chavez – Birth of an Advocate

When Enrique Chavez began working for AID FOR AIDS International in his native Peru 13 years ago, he came face-to-face with two hard realities:  people living with HIV or AIDS were dying from a lack of proper medical treatment, and nobody was doing anything about it.

“My goal back then was simply advocating for the right of people with HIV or AIDS get access to life-saving medications,” he says. “It was a bad situation. There wasn’t enough medicine to go around, and the most discouraging thing was that no one in a position to change it was paying any attention to the problem.”
So, by necessity, Enrique was thrust into the new role of AIDS activist—banging on doors, barging into government offices and organizing rallies, trying to influence the powerful to take action. As it turned out, it was a role that perfectly suited his personality.

“Enrique is extremely passionate about his work and if people aren’t listening, he can get very loud,” says an admiring colleague.
On the ground in Peru, Enrique had some success, but his experience there taught him that no one person, or group, could generate lasting changes in political or social policy. To begin breaking down the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS, ending the discrimination faced by PLWHA and getting governments and NGOs fully engaged in the fight, Enrique saw the need for vast networks of activists working closely together across international borders.

When he arrived in the U.S. in 2003 and went to work in AFAI’s New York headquarters, he put his beliefs into action as the first director of the organization’s new Advocacy Department. While the department has regional offices in Peru, Dominican Republic, Panama and Chile, its reach extends throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.  For example, Observatorio Latino (http://www.observatoriolatino.org), the online forum that enables activists to monitor the use of funds from the Global Fund to Fight HIV and AIDS, currently operates in 21 countries.

“The goal is to link individuals and groups in each country so they can speak with one powerful voice, and give them all the tools they need to participate in making decisions that affect their lives,” says Chavez.
Much has changed since Enrique’s dark days in Peru. Many Latin American governments are now actively involved in the struggle, and tens of thousands of PLWHA in the region have access to appropriate medical treatment and medication monitoring. But, for Chavez and AFAI’s Advocacy Department, the struggle goes on, and so does the job of building new partnerships and programs.
“There is no standing still,” says Chavez. “You have to keep putting on the pressure.”