AHF is all about advocating for fundamental human rights that set the tone for health and wellness in the U.S. and beyond. This week, join our host Lauren Hogan as she fields questions and invites perspectives from a range of AHF leaders and employees on the topic of advocacy. If you’d like to hear more from our advocacy week sessions, visit the AHFConnect employee intranet.
Advocacy Week 2022
Celebrate Advocacy Week with a group of AHF employees whose focus is all about advocacy
GUEST BIOS
CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:
[11:22] -- Safe & Responsible Advocate
It’s not all screaming and handcuffs
Imara Canady stresses that AHF believes in safety and compliance with laws when protesting in advocacy of important causes. In fact, AHF has been told by law enforcement that AHF should train other protestors about how they should protest and have their voices be elevated in a safe and effective way.
[18:05] -- How to Get Involved
How to talk to in order to make your voice heard
If you want to get involved with international advocacy at AHF, contact Terri Ford or Denys Nazarov, as well as anyone from the advocacy team. You can also retweet and share various advocacy posts in order to help spread the word as far and as fast as possible about the most important issues.
[33:38] -- Mental Health is Patient Health
An important reminder
Jose Ramos reminds us that mental health is a major issue at this point in history, and protecting the lives and health of patients means looking out for their mental health, as well. For this purpose, Impulse Group is opening its first mental health house in collaboration with WELLNESS in Guadalajara, Mexico.
[38:39] - Passion Over Politics
Don’t get lost in the weeds of the battle
Jose also reminds us all not to let the politics and overwhelming nature of the battle to eliminate HIV transmission and protect the rights of marginalized groups derail our passion. Passion is what drives all of the work at AHF. It’s often the spark that leads to new initiatives, new advocacy opportunities, and better service for patients and clients.
FOLLOW:
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ABOUT AFTER HOURS:
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is the world’s largest HIV/AIDS service organization, operating in 45 countries globally. The mission? Providing cutting-edge medicine and advocacy for everyone, regardless of ability to pay.
The AHFter Hours podcast is an official podcast of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, in which host Lauren Hogan is joined by experts in a range of fields to educate, inform, and inspire listeners on topics that go far beyond medical information to cover leadership, creativity, and success.
Learn more at: https://www.aidshealth.org
ABOUT THE HOST:
Lauren Hogan is the Associate Director of Communications for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and has been working in a series of roles with the Foundation since 2016. She’s passionate about increasing the public visibility of AIDS, the Foundation's critical work, and how everyday people can help join the fight to make cutting-edge medicine, treatment, and support available for anyone who needs it.
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Lauren Hogan:
Get unfiltered lessons from our leaders at AHF, as we uncover real, raw stories of where we came from and where we are going. Join us for an unscripted look at the connections our senior leadership have to our mission, core values, and hot initiatives. AHF is the world's largest HIV/AIDS service organization, operating in 45 countries globally, 16 states domestically, including D.C. and Puerto Rico. Our mission is to provide cutting edge medicine and advocacy regardless of ability to pay. Hello, and welcome to The After Hours podcast. I'm your host Lauren Hogan, serving as your liaison to take you through this journey to learn more about AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Before we start the show, please make sure to remember to check out the show notes, so you can follow along. Now, let's get started.
Lauren Hogan:
So, good morning, or good afternoon, everyone. My name is Lauren Hogan. I serve as our Associate Director of Communications for our AHF Media Department, and I have the pleasure of being your host for our 2022 Advocacy Week. So, really quickly, this week, all AHF employees will get the opportunity to engage with various individuals who spearhead our advocacy efforts here at AHF. The main questions that we're going to be assisting with answering for you guys is, "What is it?" "Why do we do what we do?" "How do we do it?" And most importantly, "How do I get involved? I would like to introduce our guest speakers for today, Amar Kennedy, who serves as our National Director of Communications and Community Engagement here at AHF, as well as [Tanya Thurman 00:01:36], who serves as our Associate Director of Mobilization. So, take it away, you guys.
Tanya Thurman:
Good afternoon, everyone. I'm so excited to be able to kick off Advocacy Week. So, the question is, what do you think of when you hear the word "advocacy"? So, we see "justice," "truth," "helpful," "assists grassroots," "free speech," "fighting for what's right," these are all great.
Amar Kennedy:
Lots of good words.
Tanya Thurman:
Yes. "Courage," "protection," "freedom," I love it. Keep them coming. So, it seems like the top three is "justice," "support," "help," and "courage." Well, that was four. "Partnership," "empowerment," "community," and then one... They're still coming, great.
Amar Kennedy:
People have lots of thoughts.
Tanya Thurman:
They do. "Boots on the ground," that is definitely a good one. "Taking a stand," "human rights..."
Amar Kennedy:
I love it, Tanya, because particularly great since advocacy is one of our core pillars for the organization. So-
Tanya Thurman:
Absolutely.
Amar Kennedy:
... It's great to see that we've got employees really thinking about what "advocacy" means for them personally, too.
Tanya Thurman:
Absolutely. And then, next, "What issues are you personally most passionate about? "Justice," "human rights," "mental health," "racism," "trans rights," "Don't Say Gay," "social equality," "costs of living," "sexual health," "health equity," "access," "comradery," "girl empowerment..." That's one of mine too... "Fighting racism," "housing instability," "sexual orientation," wow, "medical care," "financial literacy," "women's rights," "trans rights," "insurance," wow, this is great guys. "Immigrant rights," "helping others..."
Amar Kennedy:
And Tanya, you know what's great? They just told us that we have close to 270 staff members [crosstalk 00:03:45].
Tanya Thurman:
Young people, I see you in the chat as well. This is awesome. Wow, I love it. I love it. And what's so great is that AHF touches on a lot of these issues that you are passionate about.
Amar Kennedy:
And-or we have partnerships, either through our affiliate groups, through the things that we do through AHF events, through the things that our [inaudible 00:04:12] affinity groups are involved with as well. And I love the fact, too, that... Because part of what makes AHF great is really kind of having an employee base at every level that really is connected to the community and concerned about what happens in our community. So, this is great to see. I mean, and we see a number of them, over 150 or so folks, that have responded to things that are just important to them.
Tanya Thurman:
So, when we say "mobilizers," who exactly are those? Our mobilizers are literally... Somebody has said "boots to the ground..." Well, these are the mobilizers. They are truly boots to the ground. We have 27 mobilizers throughout various states across the country, and they are independent contractors with AHF, and they work closely in the community. They bring their expertise. We have mobilizers who specialize in legislative affairs, specialize with different social dynamics. So, for those of you that work, particularly with the pharmacy sales reps or the linkage teams, these are definitely some of your go-to people, and I know some of our mobilizers partner with you guys a lot. So, if you are in an area and you don't know your mobilizer, please, please get with me, and we can link you. They are definitely a dynamic, dynamic resource. They organize events. They market AHF services, and even help connect them to the healthcare centers as well as the pharmacy.
Tanya Thurman:
They have their own team of volunteer advocates that we rely heavily on, especially when we do things like our Twitter rallies and our in-person activations. They have their own boots to the ground army as well. We are currently looking for... Shameless plug... We are currently looking for two new mobilizers, one in Seattle and another in Orlando. So, if you know anyone who you think that will benefit and will add value to our Mobilization Team, please send them our way for Seattle as well as Orlando. I see someone that says, "This team is great." Thanks. Yes, I love being on this team.
Amar Kennedy:
The AHF advocacy really has a broad depth and reach. The Jackson girls as we call them... And I'm not sure if they're on... But they were leading an effort, really a grassroots movement, around taking down the flag, the previous flag in Mississippi that was a true symbol of just hate and racism, and through the support of really Michael, and the vision and leadership of how we could play a role there, and even our own [Anita Castile 00:06:52] went down in the trenches early on to mobilize folks. And it was a bumpy road along the way, and you say, "So, why does AHF get involved in activations or advocacy efforts like that?" But what we know is that many of the issues... And that's why it was so great to hear some of the things, or see some of the things, that you guys were thinking about, in terms of what advocacy means to you, things that you're passionate about, because we know things like racism, things like sexism, homophobia, and so forth, impact not only our client base, but impact our employee base.
Amar Kennedy:
So, we have a strong platform. We have the wherewithal to really have our voice be elevated and really be the voice for the voiceless. So, there's oftentimes things where we either lead the charge or partner with others within the charge to really try to make a difference. So, I'm [inaudible 00:07:43] going to go from... To give you kind of a highlight of some of the pictures that you're seeing there... Is everything, again, from taking down the Mississippi flag, which ultimately was a huge success, a long journey, but a huge success, to the engagements that we had... Gosh, it feels like it was a hundred years ago...
Amar Kennedy:
But a couple years ago, during the heart of the pandemic, when we saw an immense uprise of racial tension happening across our country, and where we reignited the [Stand Against Hate Campaign 00:08:12], which unfortunately, has continued to have legs around even the work that we're having to do most recently, which connects us to the amazing, cross the country advocacy that happened, where we probably had two or 300 people plus out between Orlando and Burbank, around the Don't Say Gay efforts and calling Disney out... And thank you. I know many folks on this call were part of that... To just a variety of things, to things that we've done in speaking out around, "Vaccinate our world," to speaking out, in terms of Moderna and big pharma, around access to vaccinations too. I mean, I think [Tracy 00:08:53] and I, our favorite one, is where we were in Florida, and when you get there, you're on the ground, and you have to think, both creatively, where you can have your voice be heard, but also putting safety first.
Amar Kennedy:
And so we were going against the former Governor of Florida, and we get to this point where he lived on this fabulous beachfront property. And so then the traditional place that we would be is obviously on the sidewalk. Well, we get there, and there's no sidewalk, but Tracy, being quick on the ground with the AHF Advocacy Team, we were like, "We've got about 100 folks are about to be here," so there was this great visual. His backyard bumped up into the beach. So, we just said, "Well, if we can't get him from the front, we're going to take him from the back."
Tanya Thurman:
So, "How to get involved..." So, I know we understand that everyone, depending on your job with AHF, you can't always visit us and join us for the in-person activations, but there are so many levels to get involved. First, you can go to our website, [acehealth.org 00:09:51]. Go to the "advocacy" tab and then click the "take action." This is all on social media, just takes about 30 seconds to complete, whether it's sending an email to your congressperson, things of that nature. Twitter rallies, we are always sending out tweets. The good thing with COVID, it really created this Twitter rally storm, thanks to [John Farina 00:10:12]. He really brought this tool that... We even use it, even though we're back in person now, where we combine it with our in-person activations. In-person activations, if you want to get involved, just please contact us at [mobilizationstaffatacehealth.org 00:10:26] to get on the distribution list, and just make sure you get permission from your supervisor. Thank you.
Lauren Hogan:
I think that there's sometimes a misconception around the type of advocacy that we do here at AHF, and I don't think people really realize all of the different arms and legs. So, can you guys just quickly kind of give a brief synopsis of the different types of advocacy we do, whether it's social justice, which we just saw as a snippet of the Mississippi [inaudible 00:10:52], or if it's protesting on a governor's beachfront property? Can you just kind of talk about that really quick?
Tanya Thurman:
We do vaccine equity, the Don't Say Gay. We do so much stuff around the food insecurity, where we're literally just doing food drives, which is one of our newer programs, the Georgia hate crime bill. There's no limit to what we do. It's so hard to put it all into one. Amar, you want to add anything?
Amar Kennedy:
No. The only thing that I will say is that when you think about protesting, it's not the craziness that you see in the movies, where people are getting dragged off to jail and all that. That is one of the great things, I'd say, is that we do take safety first, and free speech but in compliance with the law. So, I mean, actually we have had police all over the country say that AHF should train other protestors around how they should protest, and really have their voice be elevated.
Lauren Hogan:
From Angela, "What is going on around the Don't Say Gay Bill in Columbus, Ohio?"
Tanya Thurman:
There is a lot. It has not been assigned to a committee. We are watching the bill closely, and we...
Tanya Thurman:
[inaudible 00:12:00] assigned to a committee. We are watching the bill closely and we have some activations lined up, but we can't know anything specific until it gets assigned to an actual committee to see who those targets are going to be. But we are planning on doing something in conjunction with pride.
John Hasso:
You want me to jump in here?
Tanya Thurman:
Sure.
John Hasso:
So for those people who live in Ohio, you can go to a link that John Fereno can supply you. I think John is off today and it will help you send a message to the speaker of the Ohio General Assembly, declaring your opposition to the Don't say, gay bill. So I think maybe someone can do that. And I don't live in Ohio, but I sort of put the address of the task force. I used the address of the task force. So for those of you who don't live in Ohio, you can do it that way and still register your opposition.
Lauren Hogan:
Thanks, John. Next question is from Hans. So how do you choose or how do we choose rather what we decide to advocate for?
Tracy:
I can take that one. It's Tracy. We are constantly watching what's most important to us, which is the protection of our 340B Program and making sure that we are holding power centers accountable. So the things that rise to the top are PBMs and 340B. We work on several legislative fronts, so if there's a congressperson that's bad or they're voting incorrectly, or we would like to influence their vote, sometimes that will go to the top of the list.
Tracy:
But then when issues like Don't Say Gay, or Stand Against Hate, or the Hate Crime Bill, when those issues arise, we prioritize those also. So it is a little bit of what pot is burning the highest, but some of it is always remembering that we've got to protect the things that are most important to our client centered, client focused agenda.
Lauren Hogan:
Thanks Tracy. So Megan asked what are some results from recent advocacy actions? Thank you, Kevin, for putting in the chat that, "Because of our efforts around, Don't Say Gay the bill in Florida and Disney, for instance, the Disney CEO, Bob Chapek actually finally took a stance and is now in a battle against Ron DeSantis, but he should have said something at the beginning." So that is one result, but Tanya, Amara, go ahead.
Tanya Thurman:
We protested against OptumRX, which is a PBM and you guys will hear more about PBMs later this week. They were in negotiations and something didn't go right, but so we protested and by the time we were done protesting, the legal team had already got a call to meet back up with OptumRx and we were able to get a victory. So that's a first hand of how we had a success.
Amar Kennedy:
I was also going to add an earlier one too, that was probably about six years ago, we were having a battle in Baton Rouge around our access to 340B and fairness in terms of how we were treated, because we had the largest client base there of folks living with HIV. And it felt like we were in bad Rouge every week, doing some level of protesting, particularly towards the mayor at that time.
Amar Kennedy:
And I think a number of great things came out of that one is that we were able to restore a very equitable relationship with the city so that we were treated with equity. But on top of that, it's like now who would think that the mayor is one of our best friends. I mean, she comes out to a lot of our stuff and supports a lot of our efforts and that had to do, I have to give direct appreciation to our mobilizer, Sasha, there who kept working it in the community while at the same time, our legislative affairs team, David Pool and others we're also working at a higher level.
Tanya Thurman:
John Hasso did you want to add? I don't know Jack that story yet.
John Hasso:
Sure. Yeah. So for people who work in the pharmacy side of AHF, you probably know what I'm talking about. So there's this middleman organization called the pharmacy benefit managers and there's three of them that control 80% of the pharmacy drug markets. It's the supply chain for the medications actually end up in our AHF pharmacy.
John Hasso:
And so this middle man called OptumRx, which is subsidiary of the enormous health insurance company, the largest one in the country, UnitedHealthcare, so they have been putting the squeeze on AHF pharmacy for many, many years. Nickle-and-diming us, creating all these excuses to penalize us and AHF got sick and tired of it and basically said to Tracy Jones and the mobilization team, Tanya, "Go up to their headquarters and protest because we're sick and tired of this." So we went up there.
John Hasso:
I don't think anybody has ever protested in front of OptumRx. And we were up there for... Tracy, you can correct me, maybe 45 minutes and screaming and yelling at them with signs, embarrassing them, making their employees wonder why they're working for such a scumbag company. And within an hour, they called us back to the negotiating table and basically conceded everything. So that's an example where advocacy really paid off for AHF and not just AHF, but that money that they were taking away from us are resources that we use to provide more care and more services for the people that depend on us who don't have many resources. So that was a basically a big win for AHF's mission. I hope that explained it in everyday terms.
Lauren Hogan:
It did, thanks John. So just as you guys can see, we actually do get a lot of wins out of our advocacy efforts, which is always a good thing to know.
Lauren Hogan:
Next question is, are there opportunities for getting involved in international advocacy? I don't know if Terry or Dennis or anybody from the global team is on? If they're not, my recommendation would be just to email them offline, to see if there're any opportunities as global would handle any of our international advocacy efforts.
Speaker 1:
To add to that. We're going to have a whole week on global that will include global advocacy in a few months, but go ahead Terry.
Speaker 2:
Yep.
Speaker 3:
There're many ways and please anybody wanted to get involved, contact me or Dennis Nazeroff there or any [inaudible 00:18:39] from our team. But yeah, and I think it's in July or August, we're doing a whole week like this on global and you'll get to see a lot of opportunities, so thanks for being interested.
Speaker 2:
I'll just add the most immediate and easiest way to help the global advocacy is to retweet various advocacy things that we post on Twitter and just help us spread the word as far as possible.
Lauren Hogan:
Beautiful [inaudible 00:19:03] Thank you.
Speaker 4:
So a quick question is I see that there's something called Above and Beyond points, I'm assuming that's for staff. Is there something equivalent for volunteers like myself or people that are part of the Affinity groups? I guess also then is there some sort of other... I know this is being recorded, is it okay to share with the Affinity group volunteers just to kind of get them on board since a lot of them might be working during these work hours?
Lauren Hogan:
Dan?
Dan:
Yeah, we could. We'll definitely be putting this together too, and setting it out to you and all the staff hopefully next week and feel free to forward it off, it'll be on YouTube. As far as above and beyond points for non-staff, let's talk about that later, I think we could probably work something out.
Lauren Hogan:
Thank you. We also too have our after hours podcast, which is for AHF specifically. So you can also share that with Affinity group members as well as any volunteers, if they want some other information about all things AHF and also just recaps of weeks that we have like this.
Lauren Hogan:
Okay, next question. How do you all gauge what is high priority? I know it's a lot to put together and be an advocate for a lot of issues. So how do you all discern what gets high priority based on what's going on with the rest of the world?
Tanya Thurman:
I think Tracy touched on that a lot. So we really take our directors on seeing what's getting the most buzz or what's needs or what would impact AHF the most and then follow up by what's getting the most buzzed across the country.
Lauren Hogan:
The next is, how can we involve our patients in these advocacy projects?
Tanya Thurman:
They can definitely take action in the take action link and as well as the Twitter rallies. Where, if it's local, then guys, everyone can join the in-person activations, but we won't fly them across the country. But if it's something going on in your local area, we definitely encourage you to share with your clients. I know the California clients join activations a lot.
Lauren Hogan:
And that actually is you answered our next question too, Tanya, which was, are there any requirements to participate or does it depend on your location? It does depend on your location.
John Hasso:
Do you want me to answer that question about how we prioritize Lauren?
Lauren Hogan:
Yes. Sure. Go ahead, John.
John Hasso:
So advocacy allows us to expand our care. So if it's something that helps us expand our care, like for example, the 340B drug pricing program in connection with our Ryan White contracts really allows AHF to take care of more people living with HIV. So those two things come together a lot and we're always looking to protect and defend the 340B drug pricing program. The savings from which really pays for a lot of the services that we can't charge through a Ryan White contract, so that's usually the first one.
John Hasso:
And when any group tries to take away that resource like drug companies and pharmacy benefit managers, we try to fight off those kinds of things. So we also use public health as sort of the real test because we're a public health organization. And if something impacts, negatively impacts, public health, like this whole movement against mentioning sexual orientation and gender identity and public schools, we're going to have to engage in that. So I hope that answers a little bit of the question.
Lauren Hogan:
Absolutely. And then really quickly too, because there are a couple of questions in here about trans rights and some other Don't Say Gay bill stuff, either Tonya or John or Tracy, can you guys just do a quick synopsis of our overall campaign that we're doing? So people know that we're encompassing a lot of different things around this Don't Say Gay campaign that we're doing to incorporate trans rights and critical race theory and different things of that nature.
John Hasso:
Yeah, the Don't Say Gay movement is really an intersection with an effort to motivate the Trump base to turn out and vote in November. And so what we're doing is we are sounding the alarm that this is bad public policy for AHF's mission, our mission to take care of some of the most vulnerable people who depend on us for lifesaving medication. And so it also inhibits a frank discussion of public health, sexual health, when kids need to know about it, as the saying goes before the sap rises.
John Hasso:
So a lot of our schools are trying to censor any kind of discussion about race, about sexual health, about gender identities, about sexual orientation. And so we're standing up against that movement, wherever it shows up, particularly where we have facilities. So that's why it is a public health-
John:
... facilities. So, that's why it is a public health discussion, but it's also making the people that we take care of even more vulnerable than they already are. I hope that answers the question.
Lauren Hogan:
Thank you so much, John. I appreciate that. And so, this officially closes out day one of advocacy week, so thank you guys all for joining. We had almost 300 participants on the first day, which is amazing. So now, I would like to introduce our guest speaker for today, Jose Ramos, who serves as our National Director of Sales here at AHF, but was also our founder for Impulse. And we'll be talking about affinity group advocacy today. So take it away, Jose.
Jose Ramos:
Yes. Hi, everyone. And thank you, Lauren. So, today's about how do the affinity groups work with advocacy? For those of you who haven't met me, I started Impulse as a volunteer in 2009. And it came out of my best friend guy got diagnosed with AIDS at Cedar-Sinai, so that was the first time I've ever seen AIDS in my life. I wasn't involved with AHF back then. When my friend told me he was diagnosed, I took him to Out of the Closet, or Hollywood Out of the Closet on a Saturday. And that's when we finally... he got diagnosed as AIDS. And we went through his journey of almost dying in Cedar-Sinai. That being said, that's how I went back to AHF and went to Michael and wanted to volunteer and give back to AHF.
Jose Ramos:
The reason for AHF and why I became involved was, I saw the care and just the kindness of the team in the Out of the Closet. And that's why I wanted to volunteer and give back. That is how the Impulse concept affinity groups began. When I first went to Michael and AHF, I actually started kind of working a bit with public health. So, it was supposed to work something under Whitney. I met with Whitney. We kind of work on, how do we do this as an affinity group?
Jose Ramos:
Back then, we didn't really know what it was going to be like, but we knew one thing. So, Impulse began in West Hollywood, and I go into the different affinity groups because there's multiple now. But it was just, why in the city of LA, are we having so many HIV infections when we have all the resources in the world, and we are in one of the most pretentious cities in the world?
Jose Ramos:
So that being said, that's how this began, right? So, began out of the need of HIV, of AIDS, and why do we have resources in such a big city? And why do we still have so many conversions of HIV? So, that is the beginning of Impulse. It began with a group of people in my kitchen. Literally Kevin can say to this, I literally used to bribe people with wine and crackers. It wasn't really a thing. People didn't want to talk about HIV 13 years ago.
Jose Ramos:
So even though a lot of you might think that we are a party group, we are a bunch of drunk kids who don't wear shirts, which is true, all these different perceptions... Oh, my favorite one, all we do is circuit parties. I still here that all the time. So even though that has been the impression, Impulse began out of the need of HIV prevention in the city of West Hollywood.
Jose Ramos:
And that is so... When we talk about advocacy, it really began out of a need of educating and empowering gay men to know about their sexual health. What was different is... Well, public health wasn't really working as well, right? So if public health, and I'm not saying just AHF, but if public health as a whole was doing what it's meant to do, we wouldn't be having so many HIV infections, at least when we started. So, we knew something was missing.
Jose Ramos:
Impulse began as HIV prevention and 10 years in, we change our mission to, what you can see on the screen is, to engage, support, and connect gay men. So the engaging, that's what you see in the parties. That's what you see in the pool parties. That's what you see all the different works. Supporting, is what kind of support do gay men need? That is what the advocacy component. What is it? Is a mental health? Is the HIV awareness? Is it loneliness? What kind of support do gay men need?
Jose Ramos:
And then how do we connect gay men to get to know one another in the different cities that we're? In our method is a global nonprofit, so 98% of all people at Impulse are volunteers. So, many of you think I get a salary out of Impulse. I do not. My full-time pay job is AHF National Sales. Most of the time, I do sales in the day and I do Impulses at night on the weekends. We do have a support team now that is paid, but mostly everybody, including the board directors and myself, are volunteered base. Our approach, we have different values. So it's about belonging, connecting, learning, and being open, having the courage and the action and equity, and being able to be a mentor to gay men.
Jose Ramos:
So this is overall, the structure. Impulse has a Board of Directors, what you see on top, which is a lot of good friends of mine and people that have been with us for over 10 years. Now, this year, we broke it down into the Board of Directors, and now we have program leadership. So if you have noticed, we have Rasheed, who's the Impulse Program Director. And then under Rasheed, we have five coordinators and managers of the program all around Asia, India, and United States.
Jose Ramos:
So now, Impulse has become a business line for AHF, since we have grown so much. We have about 650 volunteers and we have 25 chapters operating right now. And we are beginning Santiago, making it 26 operating chapters, in 13 countries, in five continents. So, it has become a lot bigger than it was meant to at the beginning. And that is why I need a whole support of five people that's paid, and I need a support of board directors and then about 500 volunteers. So, this is the structure.
Jose Ramos:
This last slide... So over the years, I've been trying to understand, how do we qualify what we do? So, we are incorporating different reports. So after this year, we are having Domo reports in which you're going to be able to see the impact of Impulse. And what we are going to be tracking is, how many people get tested? How many people get linked to pharmacy and confirm pharmacy? How many people come through our wellness or our healthcare centers through Impulse? So right now in Domo, we have reports that will tell us that qualitative data so that we can present to the Board of Directors of AHF, Michael, and everybody else.
Jose Ramos:
A lot of people think that we just get money and we have no requirements, no return on investment, that we just do parties and do our thing. Those of you who work for AHF, if you believe that, then you will be naive because everything we do at AHF has a return on investment. Every money that goes out, we need to see and we need to explain what it does. Impulse is not different.
Jose Ramos:
So far this year, and we are still kind of in COVID times, we've tested over 500 people, we've had over 70 events so far, 63,000 participants, whether social media, in person, or Zoom calls, and we had over 40 people link into pharmacy. So the pharmacy linkage, people keep asking me, "Well, how do you know?" Well, the good thing is, I'm a National Director of sales, so I have accessibility to all pharmacies, sales reps at Impulse. So if somebody can track that successfully, it's me. And I'm still working on, how do we get these reports so that we can show people, whether you believe in the project or not, that it's not just to have fun, that there're requirements that we need to bring, and there're expectations we need to do?
Jose Ramos:
Impulse group is only gay men, even though we do have trans, we do have straight men, straight women. We have everything within the groups and we have them in positions of leadership. But Impulse was designed for gay men. Because of Impulse, we have more than that. Right? So, we have FLUX that specializes only in trans needs. We have BLACC, mostly black, straight or gay, and then we have SPARK and then we have LOUD. So when people ask, "Well, why do you do so much... why do you do so work for maybe more for the Latino community, the black community, or the transgender community?" Well, first of all, as gay men, who are we to speak on behalf of these communities, right? And then also, we already have a group similar to Impulse with similar funds that will target those specific demographics.
Jose Ramos:
So even though we're all inclusive of the gay, queer experience, we focus 80% on the needs of gay men. The top two, three advocacy events topics right now for Impulse is meth addiction and fentanyl. So most of our cities is rampant, the way meth has is rampant in the gay community, especially after COVID. I've seen more people dying of meth related deaths and fentanyl than HIV in a lot of the metropolitan cities. So, that is a huge focus on advocacy for us. Also, getting back to basics of HIV and STIs, as you guys know, we are having a rampant increase of SCIS all around the nation, not only that, all around the world. So, how do we get gay men back into basics, knowing their status, getting tested, and just being healthy as a whole?
Jose Ramos:
And lastly is, mental health. Mental health right now, loneliness, suicide, and depression, is huge. Before we start the advocacy questions, one of the projects that I'm more passionate about right now, probably the most passion I've been of anything Impulse has done in five years is, we're opening our first mental health house in collaboration with WELLNESS in Guadalajara, Mexico. And this will be the first time that Impulse provides service for gay men.
Jose Ramos:
We're working with the team there, so WELLNESS will have the testing, the linkage to care. We will have the mental component. So we started a hotline call a year and a half ago in Guadalajara, and we're getting about 70 people calling every month, seven to eight of them being suicidal, and five of them being really high risk of killing themselves. So, that is the reason why we're starting this new pilot. If all goes well, I'm hoping that we will continue that in Mexico City and more third world countries.
Jose Ramos:
The reason why we can't do it in the United States, it is extremely expensive here. In Mexico, we will be able to hire two therapists under Impulse and provide one year of therapy for high risk, gay men who are really struggling with depression, suicide, and drug addiction. We will have support groups for newly diagnosed to get them undetectable. We will have support groups for meth users and people who just want to connect. That is going to begin hopefully, this month. I will be attending our first grand opening of the Impulse House. Hashtag free to be, is the name.
Jose Ramos:
So, that's also part of the advocacy of how we do it. Our advocacy is meant to be done by us for us. And that's why the way you see in the videos, we are in bath houses, we are at a circuit party, we are the bars, but we also are in conferences. We also do testing. We also do Prides. So, we try to meet men where they're at. We don't do gatherings at a conference asking people to come and check us out. Nobody does that. So, we meet them where they're at, and that is how I feel like it has been successful. I mean, the reason why people want to give back... give time to us is because it's giving them a purpose bigger than themselves. And that's what the advocacy for us has been. The other affinity groups do similar things. The model is a little bit similar, but the...
Jose Ramos:
Two similar things. The model is a little bit similar, but the structure's a little bit different. They have different ways of getting their groups together. A lot of them are AHF employees. A lot of them are vendors. So they have a similar structure with chapters leadership, but they run a bit different than we are. As I mentioned, most of our members besides myself and a couple of the board members are volunteers. They don't work for AHF. That's one of the biggest difference. And every group is led by a group of directors and they really determine what kind of advocacy work they do. We do have check and balances. We have an event proposals, event recaps, financial reviews. And overall, we have some tactics that we can keep them in check. And also making sure that they're talking about advocacy topics like health, sexual health, mental health, and drug addiction.
Lauren Hogan:
So first and foremost, a question from Carlos. Any way that we can participate in these programs, Jose? How can people get involved?
Jose Ramos:
So we have, if you're in a city where we have a program, A, myself or Rashid can be a connector. So usually when people want to get involved, we have three types of volunteer memberships. People who are on the board, they usually work a little bit more than we have members who attend consistent meetings and then we have volunteers. So based on your availability, there's a place for you. So usually they can contact me or they can email@impulseinfo.org, and then we will connect them to the leader, but even if it's somebody within AHF, email me or Rashid, and we will connect with the leaders and they can attend certain events or meetings, depending on the type of involvement they want to have.
Lauren Hogan:
Next question is from Kathleen, are any of our affinity groups working to help those with meth, fentanyl addiction, like working with rehab facilities?
Jose Ramos:
So I know Impulse is. So we just started to work with two partners, one in San Diego, one in LA, and we're doing the same around the United States who have fentanyl strips and also are able to educate. In our last event in LA, it was all around drug use, especially meth and fentanyl. So we have different partners, Being Alive, Recovering Homes and people who have access to a lot of these strips and different tools to prevent people from dying. So I know we are doing it. When it comes to affinity groups, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I want to say some of them like Loud, especially in San Diego, I feel like they are working with them, but I can't speak fully with them, but I want to say they are.
Lauren Hogan:
Next question. How does one get AHF to support ideas like yours to help specific groups to help eliminate HIV transmission?
Jose Ramos:
Oh, that's a really good question. Well, first of all, have the passion to do it. It's not as easy as it looks and it's taken me 13 years to get here, best years of my life too. I will say if you're really passionate about something, come up with a plan and you can talk to me. I know Queen Victoria, when she began, we used to meet a lot. Now I'm more of ... Since I'm the oldest affinity group, if I can be of a mentor and support you, let me know. I think if you have the right passion, if that specific group of people needs it, we can work something around it. We have five affinity groups right now, doesn't mean that they can be six, that they can be seven. So have the passion, know that it's more work than I realize. And sometimes you forget about the passion because it becomes so political and so overwhelming, but if you have the right passion, you will keep going. And just contact me. I think Queen Victoria is also a great ally and just ask and we can help.
Speaker 5:
And this is Kevin, just to add to that. I know that the most recent group, spark, came from a staff person and they got their supervisor on board and that person got their supervisor on board. And eventually put together a proposal and brought it in front of Michael. And he said, "let's try it." And that's what happened.
Jose Ramos:
I know somebody earlier asked me about younger gay men or queer people of 16 to 21, which is a very unique demographic who really need it. And then aging gay men over 55, which for impulse be trying to tackle, but it's really difficult, right? Because impulse tends to be 25 or 35 or 40. That tends to be a membership. It's really hard to talk to gay men getting older, but somebody asks me, "Can we do that?" We can try, but also we can start maybe a group that really just works on older gay men, because I think for impulse, with the amount of time that we have as volunteer group, trying to tackle every piece of our gay experience or every piece of the queer community is unrealistic. And I think we will just fail.
Lauren Hogan:
Cassandra Richardson. You have your hand raised, go ahead and ask your question.
Speaker 6:
That's pretty much what I was going to ask, because I understand that you guys are targeted at the gay population as a whole because I was actually going to ask, do you guys have subgroups that targets towards the Latino, the blacks? Me even being black, my black experience is not the same as everyone. And I'm pretty sure like the gay experience isn't the same for all. Or you may have gay men, gay black men from the Caribbean island. So I was wondering, do you guys have subgroups that targets those population of men?
Jose Ramos:
It's a really good question. Yes. In some places we're better than others, to be honest. Cassandra, I think some of our chapters in New York, DC, Texas, Atlanta do a better job than some people like San Diego and Dallas and LA, but it is part of our workload. We really try to target those demographics, especially because that's where HIV is really happening. Some of our groups are doing better than others, but I know in the board of directors, we had a lot of discussion around equity and what does it look like for black gay men. We also had a third vendor researcher coming inside Impulse and really help us be more equitable and having programming that really includes all gay men, not the usual. So we are working on that. It's a work in progress, but we do have programming and the grant requires 30% of funds targeting to the very at risk demographic of HIV, would tend to be black and Latino men.
Lauren Hogan:
So next question is Jose, can you touch on the strategies used to grow Impulse to be 25 chapters and have 650 volunteers.
Jose Ramos:
If I told you that I had an idea what I was doing, I would be lying. I have no idea what I was doing at the beginning. All I knew is that I cared for something bigger than myself. Took six years in LA for us to even go to Mexico city. And Mexico is where I was born. And I wanted to give back something to my country, my community. So to answer your question, it really requires a lot of relationships with AHF. So I'm not going to take full responsibility for Impulse. Every time we go somewhere, I work really closely with the AHF team. So when I went to Mexico city, I worked with the team there in wellness. I got to meet them and it's happening the same way that we go around the world. What we usually do is I look at infection rates in big cities in which we have basic resources, but HIV is still rampant.
Jose Ramos:
And then I will go with ... I work with the wellness or the AHF team, and we start to look at, is there a need? And if I get the buy-in from the AHF team, then I go to Michael in AHF and say, "Hey, I would like to start this group in Mexico city, in Georgia and this is why." And then if Michael and them agree, then the grant is given that way, but it requires me assessing. So a lot of people think that I just pick countries and we go there because they're cool because the big cities, not necessarily. We really look at infection rates and need. We don't go to really small cities where the basic needs are not there. So if they don't even have testing for Impulse to go and do an activation or a [inaudible 00:44:23] party, like many think we do, it will be weird, right? You need to have a foundation of services and treatment for impulses to exist.
Jose Ramos:
Sometimes, for example, right now, Ohio, Tracy Jones asked about starting Impulse in Ohio. Sometimes it's initiated by the team of AHF, who says, "Jose, I think we need a group like that in Ohio." Then they come to me, then I'll go. At the end of the day, I can want to start a chapter anywhere I want, but if I don't have members, it becomes really difficult. We've been trying to go to some cities for years and we haven't been able to get membership. So even though AHF might want it, I might want it. If I don't get the gist of people who are willing to give time, it might be a little bit difficult, but that's the way it starts. It starts a conversation where the need is and get the buying from the AHF team. And then we will go. And if we get the passion of members, of people in the community, then we will begin.
Lauren Hogan:
Next question. Is there any programs working with patients that want to get life insurance for people living with HIV and aids? I think this is actually an HR question. Do we have anybody from HR or Susanna Preston on the line?
Speaker 7:
I am on the line. Hi everyone. Employees are automatically enrolled in life insurance. It's the basic life AD&D. So if you're a full-time employee, you are already enrolled in AHF's life insurance policy.
Lauren Hogan:
Next question. Does impulse and or AHF pharmacy have, or make Narcan available to counter fentanyl OD's or educate the groups about Narcan?
Jose Ramos:
So good question. So AHF and Impulse, we do not. As mentioned earlier, we are partnering with people with ASO's, who have the rights and they have the license to do Narcan's. I know in our last event we have them and they we're showing our members and also our attendees how to utilize and then we'll give them for free. So we are going to sponsor, actually, we're going to do a grant with AHF for this new ASO in LA county, in San Diego. And they will be able to provide that. Also, Being Alive, which is another nonprofit. We don't have the licensing to do that. And for Impulse, even though a lot of my teams want to do that and also give away strips, the liability of them is too high and we don't have the license or the ability to be giving these things, right. We're a volunteer group and the implications of us giving Narcan cans or strips can be really high. So instead of us doing it, we're reporting with people that have licensing and the credentials to do so.
Lauren Hogan:
So on that note, we are at time for today. Thank you guys so much for joining day two of advocacy week.
Speaker 8:
Thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the show, please subscribe, share it with your friends, like, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review, follow us on Instagram @AfterHours and see you next time.