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Facing The Music is a Report by Josh Jackson in Perspectives in Health Magazine: The Magazine of the Pan American Health Organization, Volume 7, Number 1, 2002, on the Garifuna HIV/AIDS Project in Honduras. The Garifuna live in the northern coastal departments of Honduras, making them the country's largest minority. Although mainly farmers and fisherfolk, their search for work has increasingly taken them to the Honduran cities of La Ceiba or San Pedro Sula and beyond, to New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. As more Garifuna lose their land and livelihood to the development of tourism, the community keeps migrating farther and in even larger numbers and when people return home, they often come back HIV-Positive. A study by the Centers for Disease Control describes 1 of 5 commercial sex workers in San Pedro Sula as HIV-positive and states that New York City, where the greatest number of Garífuna migrate, has more AIDS cases than any other USA city. The Garifuna Project reaches out to community members through networks of volunteers. The project is being implemented by two doctors, Dr. Nestor Salavarría and Dr. Manuel Sierra who have hired fellow physicians and AIDS awareness promoters from the community, who in turn have recruited volunteers known as "multipliers" from different social and age groups. These volunteers spread awareness and create further peer groups in the community to continue with sexual health education, removing fears and misconceptions, disseminating facts about HIV transmission, educating against stigma and discrimination and motivating community support for those who are infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
Language: English
November 29, 2004

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