Plenty Caribbean gaff...

This is the first conference for Dudley from FOKO in  Curaçao. He said that the conference is interesting but he will need time when he goes back home to digest all the information. He is also assisting with rapporteuring for the Global Village. He has attended sessions related to health care, and he has found the sessions where persons living with HIV gave their testimonies to be the most powerful. The session on prevention and pleasure which Donnellis participated in was one which was vivid to him. The testimony  from the HIV positive young man from Romania who keeps wondering if he will infect his girlfriend, and the testimony from the young woman from Lebanon are two that stay in his mind.

Dudley said that standing on the other side as a service provider, he is aware that he has to stand back now and help to create a safe space so that people who are living with HIV who he is working with can speak out for themselves. This he believes will help to fight stigma and discrimination. He also liked the sessions which showed how to use theatre to educate.

Ivan from Jamaica said that the conference covers a wide range of issues and that the competing choices meant that it was impossible to have deeper learning of the issues. The timing of the panels do not allow time for enough questions. He was happy to hear of the progress with microbicides and this will energise the microbicide working group of which CVC is part in Jamaica. He liked the energy in the Global Village and the exhibition hall. The emphasis on the condomise campaign was good. He was appalled at the wastage of paper and thought that more use would have been made of CDROMs and other soft distribution mechanisms. He liked the use of tee shirts for the sustainable messages. The Liming Zone has also been great, in that a wide cross-section of Caribbean people have visited the zone and have found it a place to reconnect.

One of the presentations which stuck out in his mind is a stigma and discrimination presentation in which the presenter showed a graphical model for stigma and discrimination. The model concludes that stigma is related to other perceptions of social identity - such as gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc and that those prejudices have to be dealt with so as to remove the stigma related to HIV
Kenita from St Lucia said the conference was interesting but there were too many sessions, and she felt that she could not benefit from all of them. She said some of the workshops she went to did not meet her expectations and she found she had to be rushing from one thing to another. She was really impressed with the youths from the Dominican Republic who organised the Caribbean Youth Forum. She also enjoyed the panel about stigma and discrimination from the faith based organisations, and she wondered whether they talked one way in some places and then in other places, they changed their mouth. She enjoyed the session in the Women's Networking Zone and the LGBTI networking zone, and she hoped that next time the Caribbean Zone would also organise sessions the same way.
The Human Rights Rally was great, she and Dandrina from Barbados managed to get almost front row positions for the Annie Lennox concert.

Beverley from Trinidad said she enjoyed the workshops - mostly run by African NGOs and that she found them useful to her work as a trainer. She say she not having no food problem because she bring she food from Trinidad, she have Crix biscuit and she had drinks and water. She also have a flask wid ice because she realise dey dont serve ice. Beverley say she aint able wid no talk talk in the big presentations. Shelly from Trinidad say dat de conference arite too. Sherwood from Guyana is here with the ILO and he has been active in all of the presentations related to workplace discrimination and he participated in the Human Rights rally. He said that he thinks that there should have been a bit more visibility at the conference for the right to work/employment issue as it relates to people who live with HIV.

Bernard from St Lucia has been doing his work with the housing people. He has learnt a lot and feels much more knowledgeable about how to advocate on housing. One interesting strategy is how they build bridges with other movements - his supervisor told him to go to the Trucking Clinic booth from South Africa. It was fascinating to listen to the exchange, when Bernard started to explain where he came from and it caught the clinic guy off guard. It was kind of like if one person advocates for environment and the other advocates for sexuality rights.. how to link the two.

The journalists dem cagey... Iana from Guyana said her workshop with the NPF was excellent, but she found that it was hectic running between sessions. She found many Jamaicans though, and one woman who had a Guyana badge but was actually from Trinidad. The woman left the badge as it was.

People had all kind ah nice experience too. Marcus say a lady from Kenya ask him to be she baby father - apparently one of the conference activities which they do not schedule is baby making. She HIV positive, but Marcus say dat was not de issue, is just dat he don't want to make a child who would be in Kenya. He did not meet the woman face to face just in case he change he mind.

Talk and Party..

PANCAP hosted a Caribbean evening on Wed 21 July, 2010. The thing had food so they was careful about who and who dey inviting and one person was asked if they know how much of the youth dem was coming since.. well Caribbean youth belly lang. The PANCAP social evening overlapped with the Caribbean Youth Forum and it seems dat plenty of de youth dem just aint bother to go because dey was tired or dey didn know. Some people went in a bit late so dey missed de opening remarks.

Ian from Jamaica say dat dere was too much talk talk, and too little partying - party estimates are about 15 minutes to 30 minutes depending on who you ask (some people come late, some lef early). Tony from Jamaica  say he went an eat an den went to de ting, and  dat de ting was nice and dat it was nice to see de ladies from de Jamaica AIDS programme dancing an ting.. he could not say if dey was playing any chi chi man music or so.

Mario from Curacao said he spoke out about the need for decriminalisation of same sex consensual relationships or all the programmes will be bullshit.  He also say dat people have to let the youth's voices be heard. Apparently, a lady from Grenada spoke about the advances being made in the region. After he talk dat, he say nobody from the officials dere come up and say nothing to him except one of the people who say dat is true, the lobbying and advocacy has to be "shrill" sometimes. Dandrina from Barbados say dat de ting was nice, people gaff and so. Steve from Haiti say he did not go because he feels alienated from Pancap and that tokenism is not what is needed. Dudley from Curacao say it was nice to mix wid other Caribbean people and dat de music was good. Kenita from St Lucia say dat by de time she reach, she aint see too many NGO people, it seem dat was mostly government and inter-governmental organisation people. She was happy that Senator Ann Peters spoke at the Caribbean gathering.

A lady from Pancap say dat de evening was nice and she was glad Mario say what he had to say, but she lef early because she was tired. Some of de odder Caribbean people  say dat dey did not know about de event. One or two foreigners who pope the event say that they enjoyed.

Marcus say that it was fantastic, that at the beginning it was just official administrators there and then when all the trans and the vulnerable groups come, the mood change and party tek ovah... and plenty straight people lef and a pancap man open some 15 year old el dorado and apparently.. well there are no pictures as to whether he borrow any of the dresses or hair pieces of the trans to celebrate Caribbean diversity
Ivan from Jamaica say dat de ting was what Caribbean like do, talk and party.