By Brian M. Rafferty
During the holiday season, many people look inside their hearts to see how they can help those who are less fortunate. With a great number of Queens charities that can help brighten a needy person’s day, it is hard to choose where to begin.

Perhaps a great starting place is to look at children and adults in Queens who are living with HIV and AIDS.
Often, treatments for the disease are paid out-of-pocket, and force families to make hard decisions when it comes to the holidays.

Helping Children
The AIDS Center of Queens County makes sure that their clients, which include some 500 families in Queens, don’t spend the holiday without the same sort of joy that many children feel across the borough – the simple happiness that comes from opening a holiday present.
The Center, which has four locations throughout the borough, will host holiday parties for staff and clients, and at these private parties, which will be held Dec. 16, the children living with HIV and AIDS will receive donated presents thanks to the generosity of the ACQC staff.
But they could always use a little more help to bring smiles to these kids, and they are hoping that the rest of Queens could take the time during this holiday season to consider the children in families affected by this deadly disease.
According to Executive Director Philip Glotzer, donations of toys and gifts for children ages 12 and under will be accepted throughout the month, and can come from individuals as well as corporate entities.
“If anybody wants to make a donation they can call Paulette Zimmerman at (718) 896-2500 to make an arrangement,” he said. From there, donors would be directed to the center closest to them. They can also arrange for the center to pick up the gifts, especially it is in volume.

World AIDS Day
While the children and families affected by HIV/AIDS are ACQC’s focus during the holiday season, they also set their sights on World AIDS Day, an international recognition to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS throughout the world.
In Queens, there is plenty going on, including a Queens HIV CARE Network-sponsored day-long forum to be held at York College in Jamaica, which is a co-sponsor of the event.
The day will begin with breakfast and a welcome from Dr. Marcia Keizs, president of York College, and will continue with Simone Marie-Meeks, Senior Policy Associate, Division of Health Policy at New York Academy of Medicine, who will introduce a panel of community leaders that will discuss HIV/AIDS Issues.
The participants include: Dr. David Ajuluchukwu, Associate Professor of Public Health & Chair for Physical Ed. and Gerontological Studies at York College; Herold Homere, Provisional Level-II Supervisor at HASA; Philip Glotzer, MPH, Executive Director, AIDS Center of Queens County; Leroy Comrie, Council Member of District 27, Dr. Marc Johnson, MD, New York Hospital of Queens, Dr. Monica Sweeney, MD, MPH, FACP, Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control – NYC DOH-MH, the Rev. Stacy Latimer, Founder of Love Alive Ministries; and Yvonne Reddick, District Manager, Community Board 12.
In the afternoon, there will be a wide range of entertainment and resource tables set up for people to learn more about this disease while having a good time.
For more information on the World AIDS Day 2008 event, which drew 400 visitors last year, contact Network Coordinator Robert Steptoe or Program Assistant Melissa Robertson at (718) 739-2525.

Framing AIDS
In addition to World AIDS Day itself, the Annual Queens Arts observance of World AIDS Day, Framing AIDS, run by Queens Media Arts Development will kick off Sunday, Nov. 30, with the opening of an exhibition at Queens Museum of Art that will run through Dec. 22 featuring performances by local spoken word poets Emanuel Xavier, La Bruja, and Simply Rob.
Emanuel Xavier is the author of the poetry collections Pier Queen and Americano, the novel Christlike, and editor of Bullets & Butterflies: queer spoken word poetry and Mariposas: A Modern Anthology of Queer Latino Poetry. He has been featured on Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry on HBO and selected finalists for Best Gay Erotica 2008. He performs regularly throughout the country as an openly gay spoken word artist and is considered a role model for queer youth, particularly queer youth of color. He is recipient of the Marsha A. Gomez Cultural Heritage Award and a NYC Council Citation for his many contributions to gay, Latino and New York City arts.
La Bruja is a poet, Hip Hop/Reggaeton artist, and activist. Since her auspicious spoken-word debut at the famed Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe in 1996, Bronx born and raised, Caridad De La Luz, aka La Bruja, has appeared on HBO’s “Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam” and performed internationally at dozens of respected venues. La Bruja has long been regarded as one of the leading American spoken word poets.
With the release of “Brujalicious” she joins the ranks of artists such as Mos Def who infuse music with the power of word.
Simply Rob is a spoken word artist, actor and photographer. He was born and raised in NY of Salvadorian and Greek descent. Roberto Esteban Vassilarakis a.k.a. Simply Rob has been writing and performing his poetry since 2003 and has appeared at an array of different venues. He is the founding member of El Grito De Poetas, a collective group of diverse Latino and Latina poets. For 15 years he’s worked with “at risk” and LGBT inner city youth in The Bronx and Manhattan.
On Dec. 1, LaGuardia Community College’s Performing Arts Center will host a Framing AIDS film presentation and discussion from 3-5 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. in the Little Theater.
The first film, “68 Pages: Marked by Pain, Bound by Hope,” is directed by Sridhar Rangayan, India, 2007, and runs 90 minutes.
Coming from a country like India that is still in denial, where being HIV+ is still a curse, “68 Pages” rips open the underbelly of its society to reveal how it stigmatizes and shuns those who are HIV+ or even those who just want to be what they are.
Through 68 pages of a counselors diary, we see the stories of Paayal, a sex worker; Nishit, an ID user; Kiran, a gay man and Umrao, a transsexual bar dancer – their stories of pain and fear, humiliation and rejection - not only by the society, but even by their loved ones. While these stories expose the shallowness of the system, it also offers hope and healing by trying to bring about a better understanding of their fight to live with dignity. The film is a tribute to the human spirit of optimism and survival.
The second film, “HIV North South,” directed by Diego Torres, Bolivia-Spain, 2007, runs 34 minutes.
The reality of the HIV/AIDS through the testimony of a group of HIV Positive men and women from Bolivia and Spain. The visibility and the voice of various individuals affected the World Pandemic, provides us with an authentic and direct vision of the situation of the HIV/AIDS in the north and in the south of the planet.
This documentary was produced with the support of Hivos Holland to inform and conscientizise how countries in the industrial and developing world deal with issues of infection, prevention, and medical care.
The entire Framing AIDS project will have a multimedia project running online at www.framingaids.us, and will use digital animations and vidcasts created by NYC college students in their senior year, telling stories about living with HIV/AIDS. From the collages about pregnancy and infection, to stop motion photographic animation about drug abuse, or METH and its connections to the spread of HIV, the projects educate, inform, and raise a much needed awareness about the pandemic.
For more details about FRAMING AIDS 2008 contact Hector Canonge, hectorcanonge@qmad.org, or Ada Cintron, adacintron@qmad.org. For more information about QMAD, visit: www.qmad.org.