Guest Post: Tataya Mato offers support for kids with HIV/AIDS

This week we have another wonderful guest post from our friends as Jameson Camp, who dedicate an entire session of summer camp to kids living with HIV and AIDS. How awesome is that? We think they're rockin' it with Tataya Mato, and we're betting you will too. Enjoy!

Did you know that Jameson Camp, located on Indy's West side, offers a special camp session for children affected by HIV/AIDS? This free 8-day/7-night session of camp is called Tataya Mato and serves youth ages 7-17. Children attending this session of camp either have the disease or have a close family member who does. This is the only camp program in Indiana that serves children impacted by HIV/AIDS.

Tataya Mato offers a unique combination of a traditional eight-day overnight summer camping experience combined with a program of personal growth and support of the child’s family and caregiver. Tataya Mato campers partake in traditional camp activities including archery, rock climbing, creek stomping, culinary arts, journalism, and art expressions. Older campers have the opportunity to go on multi-day camping and backpacking trips in Indiana and out of state. While at camp, youth gain in self-confidence and social skills, and learn to respect themselves, others, and the environment. They are also immersed in a supportive and fun environment with children who are facing similar challenges and obstacles related to living with or knowing someone with HIV/AIDS.

The Jameson staff work with various community partners throughout Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio to recruit children for the Tataya Mato session. Free transportation is provided to each child who attends this session of camp and Jameson Camp waives camper fees for children attending Tataya Mato. It costs Jameson Camp roughly $45,000 each year to operate Tataya Mato, so we depend on the generous support of individuals, foundations, and corporations to help cover the costs of this specialized camp. It is our belief that every child should have the opportunity to experience the excitement and culture of summer camp. We provide our campers the opportunity to make lifelong memories while gaining important life skills.

Jameson Camp is grateful for its partnership with Roche Diagnostics and the Indiana AIDS Fund, who have been strong supporters of Tataya Mato over the years. If you are interested in supporting HIV/AIDS programs like Jameson Camp and The Damien Center, we encourage you to participate in the Indiana AIDS Walk on Saturday, September 28th! Join The Damien Center’s team and help raise money to fight HIV and AIDS right here in our community. Can't attend the event? Make a secure online donation or help us spread the word!

Guest Post: Local HIV+ teen works to end stigma

This week, our friends at Jameson Camp are joining us for a very special guest post about a local HIV+ teen who's making serious waves with her positive attitude and big heart. 18-year-old Paige Rawl is a supporter of Jameson Camp's Tataya Mato program, a week-long camp for HIV+ kids, and speaks to groups all around the city about her experiences with HIV. Read on and be inspired by Paige's story, as told by Taylor Brown.


Recall what life was like in middle school. For most people, the hardest times might include occasionally being left out or perhaps receiving a bad grade on a project. Now imagine what life would be like in middle school if you were HIV+. Imagine what it would be like if everyone knew. Imagine being relentlessly bullied.

For Paige Rawl, this was no hypothetical situation.

Paige, now 18 years old, grew up in Indianapolis and was born HIV+. Her mother contracted the disease from her father, and it was passed down to Paige. However, she didn’t know that she had the disease until she was 12 years old.

It was around this time that Paige decided to open up to a friend. “I told my best friend in sixth grade that I was HIV+,” said Paige. “She told her older sister, and it spread throughout the entire school.”

That’s when everything started to fall apart. Paige was nicknamed “PAIDS” and was harassed by children and adults alike. Eventually it became too much, and she decided to switch to homeschooling. “I went through a lot of bullying because of the stigma associated with being HIV+,” she said.

While she was being homeschooled, Paige decided it was time to take a stand and educate others on the disease in hopes of helping other children cope. “Now I do a lot of public speaking, advocacy, and education programs to raise awareness,” said Paige.

Though the stigma still exists, the number of programs that address the issue of HIV/AIDS is growing. The Indianapolis based nonprofit The Damien Center works to empower those affected by HIV/AIDS and to prevent the spread of HIV. Jameson Camp, a nonprofit organization on the west side of Indianapolis, has a week-long camp for children impacted by the disease. The Tataya Mato program is the only week-long camp in the state of Indiana for children dealing with HIV.

Last summer, Paige shared her story with the Tataya Mato campers. “Growing up, I didn’t know a lot of people who were HIV+ and dealing with the same issues as me,” said Paige. “A program like Tataya Mato gives children the opportunity to meet others like them. It makes them feel like they aren’t alone.”

Paige is currently a finalist in Seventeen Magazine’s “Pretty Amazing” competition, a contest in which participants submitted essays highlighting their accomplishments. According to Paige, 30,000 girls entered and only five were named finalists. The winner of the contest receives a $10,000 scholarship and will appear on the cover of the October issue of Seventeen. The winner will be announced in September.

Paige plans to attend Ball State University in the fall, and she also plans to continue her work educating others and raising awareness about HIV/AIDS. “Just because you are HIV+ doesn’t mean you should be held back,” she said. “It doesn’t define who you are.”

Vote for Paige in the Seventeen Magazine contest and read more about her!

25 Stories: Jennifer

Here on our blog, we talk a lot about Care Coordination, housing, and other supportive services for those living with HIV. But what does that have to do with preventing the spread of HIV? All of those services help lower the viral load of our HIV+ clients, making them healthier and less likely to transmit HIV to others. We also reach out to populations most at-risk for transmitting or contracting HIV and give them the resources they need to keep themselves and other safe. Take Jennifer, for example. 

Jennifer first came to The Damien Center as a teen uncertain of how to protect herself from HIV and STDs. But by the time she left, she knew exactly how to keep herself healthy and safe. Jennifer's story is one of hundreds like it - our youth outreach program, Teen Damien, gives young people like Jennifer both the knowledge and bravery to care for their own sexual health.

Jennifer came to our Joseph F. Miller Testing Center for resources and support after participating in safe sex programming through her school. After being tested for the full range of STDs as well as pregnancy, Jennifer and her boyfriend worked with our prevention staff to learn the appropriate way to put on a condom and engage in other safe sex practices. Through Teen Damien, Jennifer is now educated and empowered to take control of her life and her sexual health. Jennifer and other teens like her represent the potential we have to create an AIDS-free generation through early prevention education.

Teen Damien is just one of our prevention and education programs. Project CORE helps recently incarcerated individuals stay HIV- and drug-free, our counseling services help people lower their risk of contracting HIV, and our HIV and STD testing services give anyone and everyone a place to get tested and stay safe and healthy. Your year-end contribution supports services like these that prevent the spread of HIV right here in Central Indiana. Make a gift today and help us work toward an AIDS-free generation.

Happy birthday to (all of) us!

Birthdays are good for celebrating, laughing, imbibing, indulging. You know the drill: cake, cocktails, loved ones, favorite places and spaces. But they're also good for looking back. Reflecting. Thinking about how far you've come and what you've been doing that matters to you and your values.

Today, I - Kimberly, your faithful Damien Center blogger and marketing coordinator - have been doing just that as I celebrate my 27th birthday. I've been asking myself, what have I been doing these last few weeks, months, and years that enriches my life and others', that makes my community a better place?

Here at The Damien Center, we've also been celebrating our birthday - all year long. It's our 25th year serving those affected by HIV in Central Indiana, and we're so proud of the legacy we have as Indiana's oldest and largest HIV/AIDS service organization. What we do and how we do it didn't start last year or last month. It started in 1987, when a caring, progressive group of people got together to support a community in crisis.

Birthday reflections, for us, have us looking at who we served, how we served them, and where our (your) funding dollars went. So, what have we been doing that matters to us, our values, and our community? In 2011, we:

• performed 2,315 free HIV tests
• reached 796 youth through prevention education
• served 1,126 clients through Care Coordination
• helped 96 families find housing
• fed 616 clients through our food pantry
• assisted 124 clients in receiving emergency financial assistance

And this is just the beginning. Birthdays are also for looking ahead to the coming year(s), planning for a strong future, setting goals, and living life. So as I and The Damien Center look ahead to our next 25 years, we hope you'll help us celebrate both where we came from and where we're going.

Looking for ways to honor our 25 year legacy? Make a donation, volunteer, walk with us in the 2012 Indiana AIDS Walk, or snag a ticket for swankiest gala in town, the 25th Annual Grande Masquerade.  

Testing 123, Testing 123.

We know. Getting tested for HIV doesn't sound like too much fun. Luckily, it's also not too difficult, and thanks to our rapid HIV tests, it's not time-consuming either—you'll have your results within 20 minutes. No poking, no pricking—just a mouth swab and some quality time with one of our trained HIV tester-counselors.

Still sound a little scary? The awesome Teen Damien crew made this hilarious (but informative) video to prove that really, it's not. What it is is something that can help prevent the spread of HIV and STDs in our community.

Check it out and then stop by our testing center for a free and confidential test today.

The Damien Center Honored with Grant Awards

The Damien Center relies on funding from many sources to provide the high quality programs and services that help us meet our mission.  In recent months we have received several grants from private foundations that will help us continue to improve our services and meet the needs of our clients. We have recently received notification of funding awards for three now positions that will expand our services to our HIV clients:

• Marion County Public Health Department has awarded The Damien Center through Ryan White funding a full-time Mental Health and Substance Abuse Counselor as well as a full-time Medical Case Manager.
• MAC AIDS Fund has awarded The Damien Center with a part-time Housing Case-manager.

In addition to these exciting new positions, The Damien Center was recently awarded the following grants:

• The Indianapolis Foundation, a CICF affiliate:  $40,000 for general operating support
• Christ Church Cathedral:  $10,000 for general operating support
• The Realtor Foundation – $3,500 to provide one transitional housing unit for the transgender population
• Canfield Memorial Trust - $1,500 to support Kids Club programming

We are grateful to these funders for recognizing the importance of supporting HIV/AIDS programs in our community and for their confidence in The Damien Center’s ability to provide these services.  

The Season of Giving

Did you know that we're the largest and oldest HIV/AIDS service organization in Indiana? Here are ten reasons to give a little extra this holiday season:

YOU can help make a difference!
Make a donation at www.damien.org/donate

#10: You can help serve the most people infected and affected by HIV in Indiana. Last year, we helped 1,230 people with HIV/AIDS; this holiday season, we expect to serve nearly twice as many people in December as we did last year.

#9: You can help end hunger. People living with HIV need nutritious meals to help their immune system fight the disease. We gave out over 150,000 pounds of food through our pantry this year.

#8: You can help shelter people with HIV. Stable, affordable housing helps people with HIV stay on medication. We helped house 70 families in 2011.

#7: You can help prevent the spread of HIV. We provided more than 2,000 free and confidential HIV tests so far this year - up from last year's total of 1,533.

#6: You can help keep young people safe from the disease; individuals 20-24 account for the highest rates of new infections. We reached more than 700 young people with information on how HIV is transmitted and how to keep themselves safe this year, and we expect that number to double in 2012.

#5: You can help end stigma and discrimination. We provide legal services for people infected or affected by HIV with discrimination issues, living and legal wills, and various other civil legal matters.

#4: You can help people with HIV get jobs. As medications get better, more people with HIV are living healthy lives they didn’t expect to have; we teach skills that help them reenter the workforce.

#3: You can help formerly incarcerated individuals receive interventions that reduce substance abuse and other risky behaviors. We help these individuals keep themselves and others safe from HIV.

#2: You can help link people with HIV to health insurance that makes life-saving medication affordable.

#1: You can help us end HIV. We distribute more than 5,000 condoms every year; without a cure, condoms are one of the only sure-fire ways we can stop the spread of HIV.