CHAT Program
I think anyone would agree that walking through the 4th floor offices after 5pm is a very different experience than just a few months ago. Instead of hearing the typing on keyboards and voices of conference calls, you hear the newest jam on the radio, questions yelled between offices, or laughter. CHAT (Curbing HIV/AIDS Transmission among at-risk youth), a peer to peer safer sex, HIV prevention program is the newest addition to the Prevention Department. A referral based program, CHAT addresses the increased rate of HIV among African-American youth between the ages of 15-22, that are faced with challenges such as coming out of the juvenile justice system, homelessness, and addiction. The biggest challenge thus far has been breaking misconceptions around HIV transmission and perception of risk. As one of our peer workers, Courtney Jacks put it so simply during a conversation with one of her peers, “You don’t catch AIDS, it’s a process, baby”. That’s not the only process we’re talking about in the CHAT offices; only several months old, the program has been through a process of its own: going from six ill-educated peer workers to a group that has now produced raps, skits, videos, and conducted educational workshops, it has been quite the journey.
NO/AIDS Task Force is one of ten recipients around the country to receive the three-year grant through the Office of Minority Health. The only organization to receive the grant in the Gulf South, the program has its work cut out for it as in 2008, New Orleans was ranked number two in the nation for highest rate of HIV and Baton Rouge number three. In order to make the work effective there are three components to the project: peer to peer education, new media/arts, and partnerships. While the project is driven by the peer workers and the new media they create, partnerships also play a critical role in the success of the project. Partnerships aren’t merely agreements of a share of resource between organizations – more important it is that we’re all working for a common need and what one organization lacks another organization supplements to reach that need. A Maori Village woman spoke of movement building eloquently, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then we can work together”. CHAT is partnered with community organizations already working within this population in one form or another in order to align ourselves with a common interest, providing resources to the youth of New Orleans. Our partnerships include: Tulane School of Adolescent Medicine Drop-In Center, Odyssey Adolescent House, Youth Empowerment Project/NOPLAY, Brotherhood Inc., and Covenant House of New Orleans. By the end of the three year duration of the project CHAT will have ten partners.
The CHAT Project staff includes Pegah Rahmanian, CHAT Project Coordinator, Amber Tucker, CHAT Project Assistant and six peer workers: Courtney Jacks, Kentrell Roberts, Jalisa Carter, Rahmani Cole, Jamanii Brown, and Aaron Moses. If you haven’t already, please come and visit us in the CHAT office on the 4th floor by the conference room to see what we’ve been up to and meet the peer workers. Also, check out the CHAT website, http://www.chatnola.com, where you will find our projects, links to facebook, twitter, myspace, youtube, and much more.
