Claudia
Claudia has been an important person.
She pioneered the HIV youth movement in
Toronto with a few other people. She continues
to be a role model to tons of youth and
women as they seek to get connected to the
community.
Claudia was 23 when she had a baby and
tested HIV positive. Claudia found herself
in three different roles: a parent, a youth
and a woman. Although there were lots of
things that were on her plate as a mother
and a woman, being young and positive was
at the forefront for her. Claudia got involved
with the Teresa Group in Toronto and stayed
involved for about four years as a Board
member. As she started getting to know the
HIV/AIDS community, Claudia felt that HIV-positive
youth were not recognized. A turning point
for Claudia was an invitation she got from
David Kelley (a social worker, activist,
and advocate for gay men, lesbians, gay
youth and people living with HIV/AIDS) to
go out for coffee at an Ontario AIDS Network
(OAN) conference in Toronto.
After that invitation, Claudia started
connecting with other positive youth to
whom she could talk and who understood her
issues. She met Alex from Positive Youth
Outreach (PYO) at the OAN and together they
decided to pick up the pieces of PYO and
continue the program. But there was still
little attention being paid to issues for
positive youth, so Claudia made it a goal
to bring them up at every place she went.
A number of times, people accused Claudia
of skewing statistics to make it seem like
the issues of youth with HIV needed attention.
But after a couple of years, people started
to pay attention and PYO starting to take
off.
Positive youth from across the province
started getting involved in the drop-in,
women’s groups and the annual general
meetings, as well as various conferences
like the Canadian AIDS Society and the OAN.
But funding was difficult to find and the
PYO staff were starting to burn out so the
youth at PYO decided that it made sense
to join with the AIDS Committee of Toronto
in 2001.
Claudia has left PYO but continues to support
the program through the work she has done
at Voices of Positive Women. She continues
to bring youth issues to the table and believes
that HIV-positive youth are some of the
most resilient and courageous people she
knows in the HIV/AIDS community.
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