Roxanne Hanna-Ware has finally found her voice, but admits it took her 10 years of living with HIV to locate it.

The smart, quick-witted poetess did not immediately want to share her experience of having been diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS in 1998 at age 30.

She didn't tell her parents and only a few friends. With a bachelor's degree in psychology under her belt, she had spent much time working in the field of substance abuse education and prevention, including working with women and infants exposed to HIV and AIDS.

She didn't think, however, that she would soon be on the other side of the counselor's desk to hear the news that she herself was carrying HIV. She thought it was not possible and fully understood the stigma that individuals battling the disease still faced on a daily basis.

"I remembered comments from people in board meetings who were still talking about it as if was foreign. 'What are we gonna do for those people?' It was like creating a disconnect," Hanna-Ware said.

Still silent, she engulfed herself in work, including that for the Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family Life and Culture. She was honored and empowered by working with women who were impacted by the disease, but didn't yet have the freedom to reveal her own status.

"I would go home and cry. I just didn't have the freedom to speak out loud enough. I felt work would balance out what I felt inside. It never did," said Hanna-Ware, whose life took a downward spiral while trying to come to grips with depression and bipolar disease along with HIV. Her car became her primary residence after losing her home, career and nearly her life in 2005.

After joining an organization called WORLD, or Women Organized to Respond to Life-threatening Disease, she came into contact with Orangeburg resident Pat Kelly, who herself had been living with AIDS since 1985. She was inching closer to finding that voice that had been bottled up inside her.

Kelly, an HIV/AIDS activist in her own community, was determined to bring Hanna-Ware to Orangeburg, where she could share her gift of the spoken word. Through a grant from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the trip was funded and further connected Hanna-Ware with a circle of support and love that she needed to help make her life complete.

"Pat absolutely did write a grant, and I'm so grateful ... that I'm able to seek out and regain that voice," she said. "My story is a message of hope. There have been mitigating barriers to stigma and being educated, getting tested and encouraging others to get tested is good, but my message is a message of hope.

"For 10 years, I was silent. No longer do I compartmentalize my life. I do believe the spoken word is one of my gifts that God has given me for speaking out. I was going to silence my voice, but how am I going to silence his?" said Hanna-Ware, who now lives comfortably in a two-bedroom home in Alameda, Calif.

World AIDS Day will be observed on Monday, Dec. 1, under the theme "The Power of Partnerships." The USC-Claflin EXPORT Center, the Minority AIDS Council, OCAB Community Action Agency and Project FAITH are the collaborative partners who have worked to coordinate local events to raise HIV/AIDS awareness.

A candlelight vigil will be held at 6 p.m. Dec. 1 in Orangeburg's Memorial Plaza. It will be immediately followed by a walk to Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, where a commemorative program will be held. During the program, Hanna-Ware will speak at 7:15 p.m., and OCAB's peer education group members will perform the skit called "Positive."

The 2008 AIDS Walk will also be held from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Dec. 6, at Edisto Memorial Gardens in Orangeburg. Registration and warm-up will start at 9 a.m. The walk will end at Memorial Plaza, where Hanna-Ware will speak and share her survival story.

"The AIDS Walk is more than just a fund-raiser. It's a symbolic gesture of caring about human suffering and being willing to do something about it," said Pat Bell, program assistant at HopeHealth, which is the state's largest AIDS Service Organization serving Orangeburg and 11 other counties. Bell works out of the Orangeburg site, where the Changes Clinic was established in 1991 to provide outpatient treatment and care for people with HIV and AIDS living in Orangeburg, Calhoun and Bamberg counties.

Orangeburg resident Anthony Lawson has been living with HIV since 1985. He said the community needs to be aware that HIV/AIDS impacts everyone and not just a certain subset of the population.

"I think the silence is dangerous. Sometimes, people don't want to speak out because they still want to mingle and don't want their partners to know," Lawson said. "I don't agree with that. I was afraid to speak out, but when I did, I realized that people are more supportive than you think they are."

OCAB Executive Director Calvin Wright said adequate funding for HIV/AIDS research and prevention methods needs to be a national priority.

"There's no age limit to this," he said. "There's no ceiling, and there's no floor. We're finding that individuals over 50 account for probably a 15 percent increase in new infections."

Veronica Stephens, HIV program director for the OCAB/Tri-County HIV Prevention Collaboration, said, "It's also not too early to get educated about the disease and other STDs that make you more susceptible to attracting HIV and AIDS. The more STDs you have, the greater your risk of contracting HIV/AIDS."

No donations are required to participate in the AIDS Walk, but walkers who raise money with pledge forms can earn prizes based on their collected donation amounts. For more information on the AIDS Walk or to receive a pledge form, call Pat Bell at HopeHealth at 803-585-0412.

T&D Staff Writer Dionne Gleaton can be reached by e-mail at dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or by telephone at 803-533-5534. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

More local World AIDS Day events

World AIDS Day is Monday, Dec. 1, and a number of community events are being held to commemorate the day. Below are a list of free HIV testing sites and events that highlight the importance of HIV/AIDS awareness and education:

* Roxanne Hanna-Ware, a California poetess who has been HIV-positive since 1998, will speak at 6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 30, at a pre-World AIDS Day program at Anointed Light Church in Eutawville. She will speak again at 11 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 7, at Mount Carmel United Methodist Church in Bamberg.

* Free, confidential HIV testing using the rapid OraQuick method will be conducted at OCAB Community Action Agency from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, Dec. 1-5. Testing will also be conducted from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Dec. 1, at Victory Tabernacle Church, situated at 681 Broughton St. in Orangeburg.

* Orangeburg residents will join together to commemorate individuals, families and friends who have been affected by HIV and AIDS at 4 p.m. Monday, Dec. 1, in the South Carolina State University courtyard, adjacent to the student center.

The event will be sponsored by the Minority AIDS Council, Brooks Health Infirmary and Changing the Perception Inc. For more information, visit www.imachanger.org.

You must be logged in to comment.