On its 25th anniversary, the AIDS Committee of Ottawa released a strategic plan to combat the virus, including using technology, in hope that the committee won’t be needed for another 25 years.
"I didn’t want to be here 25 years later,” the committee’s executive director, Kathleen Cummings, said during the anniversary event in September. “As someone working since the early ’80s in this movement, I feel really sad and really angry that we still need to have a community response to HIV.”
With HIV and AIDS infection rates on the rise in Ottawa, the committee presented a five-year plan to its members, who gathered at The Good Companions Seniors’ Centre to mark the anniversary.
The plan says the committee will strengthen programs and services by: evaluating and tailoring them to better serve participants, raising awareness about the virus using new methods like social marketing, enhancing its image by strengthening and building partnerships with other organizations and securing its financial future with new initiatives like microfinancing.
The AIDS Committee of Ottawa came up with the plan after conducting interviews about, and holding focus groups on, the needs of the community. It also posted surveys online in both French and English.
Lesley Gittings, co-chair of the committee’s board of directors, says having strategic directions agreed upon by staff, volunteers and the community ensures everyone is on the same page, allowing them to move forward more effectively.
David Hoe, the first executive director of the committee, also launched an online memorial at the anniversary to commemorate victims of AIDS.
Many of us have seen people die,” Hoe told members of the committee. “Sadly, those people are only alive still as long as we remember them. When you and I go, those people have gone also.“
Hoe said the online memorial should not be the only AIDS memorial for those in Ottawa.
"It is, for now, a placeholder of memory,” Hoe said. “I think we need to start thinking about something that is more permanent and something that is respectful of those who have died.”
“We’ve got to capture that history because it is disappearing before our eyes,” added Barry Deeprose, co-founder of the committee. “People were dying 25 years ago, so even now we are forgetting who they were and their friends are dying or getting old.”
The fact that the memorial is online makes it accessible to everyone, especially because the AIDS Committee of Ottawa just invested in new computers for its learning centre.
AIDS Committee of Ottawa board members said they hope the strategies outlined in the plan will lead to more inclusive and effective programs and services.
"Let us use the occasion of this anniversary to recommit to a program of awareness and prevention,” said Deeprose at the event. “If we fail to do this, I can sadly say that there will be an occasion to honour the 50th anniversary.”