HIV-Positive Women Get Workshop of Their Own : Program Focuses on Assertiveness, Child Care Needs

The seminar on how to live with HIV filled Pat Griffin with hope and determination, but it left her with one burning question: Where were all the women?

At next weekend’s Los Angeles Shanti Foundation seminar at the T.H.E. Clinic in the Crenshaw district, things will be different. For the second time in a year, Griffin has helped organize a workshop geared toward women who are living with the virus that causes AIDS.

“I got so much out of it, I started wondering why it couldn’t be done for women only,” Griffin, 41, said of a 1991 Shanti seminar that attracted few other women. “They had an hour presentation on women’s issues, but that wasn’t enough.”

After the seminar, Griffin approached Barbara Crofford, program manager of the nonprofit foundation, and began volunteering.

It wasn’t until October, however, that Griffin’s mission was accomplished: The foundation sponsored its first weekend seminar for HIV-positive women and their care-givers, “Women for Positive Living,” at the T.H.E. Clinic, 3860 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

The two-day workshops provide women with more than strategies to maintain good health.

“People usually think in terms of medical intervention, but there’s a lot more,” said Crofford, who leads the workshop with Griffin. “This seminar is about the mind-body-immunology connection, and for women who may be struggling with self-esteem this is particularly important. We try to teach them how to have a higher quality of life overall.”

About 50 participants will hear discussions on the special needs of women: caring for children, practicing safe sex, asserting themselves with doctors and health care providers, and addressing gynecological problems. All of these can be difficult for women who are accustomed to being care-givers rather than care-takers and who often blame themselves for carrying and passing on the virus, Crofford said.

Perhaps the most important fact participants learn at the seminar, Griffin said, is that they are not alone. “We provide a safe place for women to talk to other women, probably for the first time,” she said. “We try to break the isolation, the stereotypes and stigmas attached to HIV and AIDS.”

“The most important thing for me was being with other women,” said Rhonda, a Los Angeles resident who participated in the October seminar.

“Other workshops I went to were mostly attended by men. Here, it’s not only HIV women attending, but also working as volunteers. People can really deal with you because they’ve walked in the shoes you’ve walked in. It’s more special.”

In the spirit of creating a nurturing environment, the foundation offers participants free child care, meals and transportation. At the sessions’ end, women are given flowers, beauty products, candles and other gifts that reinforce a feeling of self-worth.

“We’re not trying to be Pollyanna, but neither is HIV a death certificate,” Crofford said. “Participants can look around and see that there are other women like themselves who are happy, satisfied, and saying: ‘Yes, I am HIV-positive.’ ”

In fact, about one-fourth of the workshop volunteers, including Griffin, are HIV-positive. T.H.E. Clinic itself houses the county’s largest support program for HIV-positive women. Griffin said that women, who constitute the fastest-growing group of documented AIDS cases, can’t find the workshop soon enough, particularly women of color.

“Black and Latino women make up only 19% of the population, but they’re accounting for 72% of all female AIDS cases,” she said. “Women are too often reluctant to do things for themselves. We have to change that.”

Information: (213) 295-5671.

* LIVING WITH HIV

Dora Gallagher, a volunteer group leader for the seminar, writes about living with HIV. Page 18

Women and AIDS

From 1981 through 1993, Los Angeles County recorded 23,630 AIDS cases, with women composing 4.9% of them, or 1,156. The county has reported 15,187 deaths in that span.

Ethnic Breakdown

Women’s cases from 1981 to 1993:

African American: 33%

White: 32%

Latino: 32%

Unknown: Less than 1%

Native American: Less than 1%

Rate of cases per 100,000 population in 1992:

African American: 19

Latino: 7

White: 4

Asian / Native American: 1

Method of Transmission

Female exposure to HIV in Los Angeles County*

1985

Transfusion: 32%

IV Drug User: 25%

Sex: 21%

Hemophilia: 11%

Undetermined: 11%

1993

Transfusion: 4%

IV Drug User: 25%

Sex: 41%

Hemophilia: Less than 1%

Undetermined: 30%

* Pediatric cases excluded. Source: Los Angeles County Department of Health Services