The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States (1993) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
6 Voluntary and Community-Based Organizations
6 Voluntary and Community-Based Organizations
Pages 158-175
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 158... ...
The AIDS epidemic once more pushed to the fore the importance of volunteers. Already stigmatized by homophobia, distrustful of governmental intrusions and angry over the slowness of those same government agencies to take action, the gay community quickly began to organize volunteer efforts to help their own.
|
From page 159... ...
Doubts have arisen about whether CBOs will be able to meet the needs of increasing numbers of persons with AIDS and about whether the needs of intravenous drug users, their sexual partners, and their offspring can be addressed in ways that replicate the response of the more affluent and organized gay community from which the volunteer movement arose. THE ORIGINS OF COMMUNITY-BASED SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS It is often said about AIDS that it shines a harsh light to expose the cracks and flaws in the U.S.
|
From page 160... ...
Among the hundreds of groups organized in the past few years is a proliferation of AIDS-specific volunteer organizations, many seeking to address targeted needs of persons with AIDS, such as food, health education, housing, income support, or hospice care. By the time AIDS appeared, the consumer movement had matured, and there was a new-found willingness to confront and question professional authority of all types, including the traditional "paternalism" of medical care.
|
From page 161... ...
. WHO VOLUNTEERS AND WHY A number of studies of altruism, volunteer motivation, social movements, and volunteer organizations have been conducted in recent years independently of the HIV/AIDS epidemic (Jenkins, 1983; Bellah et al., 1985; Ayers, 1989~.
|
From page 162... ...
In fact, they seek something that's going to be hard. The trauma of the AIDS epidemic in gay communities fits the model of volunteering for a major natural or man-made disaster the sense of shock and total devastation motivated the level of response normally found only in extreme emergencies.
|
From page 163... ...
This kind of activity, outside the family circle, may be closer to what is generally thought of as volunteering, although such informal helping is not likely to be captured in surveys. What is most often meant by "volunteering" in the AIDS epidemic is work performed under the aegis of churches, health care institutions, or local community-based AIDS service organizations.
|
From page 164... ...
In a number of cities, organizations are devoted primarily to providing "meals on wheels"food for homebound persons with AIDS: God's Love We Deliver in New York City, Cure AIDS Now in Miami, the Chicken Soup Brigade in Seattle, and Project Open Hand in San Francisco exemplify this type of group. Some CBOs that were in existence prior to the AIDS epidemic hav adjusted their goals and expanded their services to include persons with
|
From page 165... ...
. A survey of the contributions of AIDS volunteers at Cook County Hospital in Chicago provides a representative sampling of volunteer job categories: educator/speaker, legal aid, telephone aid, donation coordinator, crisis intervention, event coordinator, art therapy, pastoral care, hair stylist, and clowns (Boyd, Kuehnert, and Sherer, 1990~.
|
From page 166... ...
I founded ACT-UP and have watched them change the world" (quoted in Kolata, 1990:A-114. Others who have eschewed social volunteering in favor of political activism have concluded that the continued growth of voluntary organizations allows government to abdicate its responsibilities, crossing the "line separating civic duty and community solidarity from overdependence and governmental irresponsibility" (Arno, 1988:69)
|
From page 167... ...
ACT-UP has waged its fight on a variety of fronts, frequently garnering national attention in the electronic and print press. Protests have included picketing the offices of Cosmopolitan magazine to protest the publication of what was claimed to be misleading information on heterosexual transmission of HIV; campaigning for needle and syringe distribution to intravenous drug users; protesting "mainstreaming" persons with HIV infection into New York City homeless shelters; and demonstrating against sodomy laws in Atlanta, Georgia.
|
From page 168... ...
AIDS activists share many dilemmas with other social and political movements in which passions run deep and moral outrage soars, such as the civil rights movement and the pro-life and pro-choice movements in the abortion debate. When is civil disobedience warranted?
|
From page 169... ...
An intense debate continues in the gay and lesbian communities about the appropriate balance between AIDS and other issues of concern (Rist, 1989~. The Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York encourages name recognition by the public of its acronym alone, GMHC, and it certainly serves a broader clientele: slightly more than one-half of GMHC's clients are white gay men; approximately 25 percent are black or Hispanics and 15 percent are white women; 10 percent of the clients are intravenous drug users (Perrow and Guillemot, 1990~.
|
From page 170... ...
The fundraising activities of local AIDS organizations have grown increasingly sophisticated. Perhaps the earliest example of the ability to raise funds on behalf of AIDS charities was a circus sponsored by GMHC at New York's Madison Square Garden in April 1983, which was attended by about 18,000 people.
|
From page 171... ...
As the proportion of AIDS cases grows among minorities in poor urban areas and among intravenous drug users and their sexual partners, the need has grown for organizations that reflect and can respond sensitively to these people's needs. This is of critical importance because minorities make up a disproportionate number of persons with AIDS: African Americans account for 12 percent of the U.S.
|
From page 172... ...
The chaotic lives and social settings of the drug subculture can frustrate the most sincere efforts of outsiders to help. Despite the particular difficulties faced by intravenous drug users, a few groups, such as New York City's Association for Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment, have been organized to provide outreach to drug users and to influence drug prevention and treatment policy.
|
From page 173... ...
Individual volunteers and the formation of hundreds of community-based volunteer organizations were a principal way in which society responded to the outbreak of an epidemic disease in a stigmatized population. The AIDS epidemic created a great demand for volunteer labor and in the process gave rise to questions about the proper role of government and private citizens in responding to a public health crisis.
|
From page 174... ...
(1987) AIDS and self-organization among intravenous drug users.
|
From page 175... ...
(1991) Inequity and power in the nonprofit sector: a comparative analysis of AIDS-related services for gay men and intravenous drug users in Chicago.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.