Portraits of Positive Change: Cycle 58 PREP Graduates Share Their Stories

Alliance’s Peer Recovery Education Program (PREP) Training launched in 1992 and has graduated over 1,500 people. PREP empowers people to learn more about health issues like HIV, safer sex, and substance use, bring prevention messages to their communities, and grow their careers.

The 58th PREP Graduation marked the first in-person graduation ceremony in almost three years and included a special address by Congressmember Carolyn B. Maloney, who was instrumental in securing federal funding for the program.

We spoke with four graduates to learn what motivated them to enroll in Alliance’s Peer program, and what was next for them.

Carmelo Adorno, at graduation, with Jean Pierre-Louis, and Joyce Myricks. Photo: David Nager/Alliance

Carmelo

Carmelo first came to Alliance LES Harm Reduction Center in 2015, to access sterile syringes and other harm reduction supplies and resources. LESHRC Peer Celeste—who values mentorship at Alliance—suggested he do some volunteer work with LESHRC and try to become a Peer.

“I’ve worked in customer service for years, and I’ve worked almost all the time since I’ve been out of prison. I started, but never finished college or my certificates like Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor (CASAC)” he said. “I wanted to get into the social work field, and share my lived experience, so I could give back to society.”

During Peer training, the class was reviewing different health diagnoses when one classmate began to cry. “I was consoling her, and it made me feel good, useful,” he said. “That’s the way I’m hoping to make people feel when I can use the Peer training. Everyone in these sessions was honest about what afflictions they had, and what they wanted moving forward.”

Barbara Walker. Photo: David Nager/Alliance

Barbara

Barbara has always been open about her HIV status and was interested in sharing knowledge and empowerment with others. She got involved with Alliance as part of her transition back to community life after incarceration through Alliance’s Criminal Justice Initiative. Alliance’s Eugene Eppes was her case manager, helping her find stable housing, and checking in on her frequently.

Eugene notes that what’s special about Alliance is “we have so many specialized programs, we don’t have to refer someone out—we can refer them in.” And he did. Barbara accessed many Alliance programs, including trainings, The Positive Life Workshop, Women Involved in Life Learning from Other Women (WILLOW), and others, absorbing skills and knowledge to share with her community.

Barbara was diagnosed with HIV in 1996, while pregnant with her son. “I felt dirty, poisoned, ashamed. I didn’t hide it, but I didn’t speak about it at first. People looked at me funny, and I came to feel that it was better for me to be open in sharing my story, to tell people about myself, rather than them tell me about me with their preconceived notions,” she said.

Barbara hopes to become a case worker at Alliance or another nonprofit where she can work with people who’ve faced similar challenges.

Brittany Gomez. Photo: David Nager/Alliance

Brittany

One of our two graduation speakers, Brittany was the youngest member of training cycle 58. She was kicked out of her home at 17 and began using drugs, in her words, “chaotically.” Nine years ago, she stopped using.

“This was the first time I felt supported in a safe, learning environment,” says Brittany. “The atmosphere was important for me. No other agency gave me the level of support I got the second I walked through Alliance’s doors. What I didn’t get in middle school, high school, or anywhere else, I got from Alliance.”

Barbara became close with Brittany given their similar childhoods, “even though she’s two decades younger than me,” said Barbara. They encouraged each other throughout the five-week course.

Brittany wants to be a Peer Advocate and help people dealing with substance use, mental health crises, homelessness, and other health-related issues.

Havanna Knight Carey presenting for the class. Photo: David Nager/Alliance

Havanna

Havanna came to our Peer training seeking community and perspective. Havanna identifies as an Afro-Latina transwoman from the Bronx. A strong advocate for transwomen, she’d looked for opportunities to connect more with her community. At Alliance, she joined our Transgender Women Involved in Strategies for Transformation (TWIST) program, and then signed up for our Peer training.

“I was developing my transness, and needed something to help me feel like I was worthy, and contributing to society,” Havanna told us. She’s been frustrated by not seeing women like her in the private sector, where she has worked in retail management, as a certified welder, and in other trades. “Transwomen aren’t seen as worthy of being in leadership, and I wanted to dive into this community here at Alliance, where I can see women of the transgender experience, as well as the need for my perspective.”

Peer training helped Havanna learn about health issues—and about herself. She gained skills to explore her own emotional triggers, as she puts it, “my non-verbal cues—how I react to stress, and anger. My boyfriend sees the change in the way I communicate verbally and non-verbally. Other people see it too.”

“I never thought I could be in social work,” says Havanna, “but I learned so much about getting through to people, hearing their stories. They might not want to be ‘fixed,’ they just want to be heard. Peer training was the first time I really learned to use my listening skills.”

All graduates of the Cycle 58 Peer Training attended every single class. Anecdotes from Cycle 58 showcase the deep bond and moments of levity that they group shared together. Brittany wrote Carmelo a note at the end of the training, saying that she had learned a lot from him and to make sure he always keeps fighting. Barbara recalled a teambuilding experience where her team was asked to do an innovative educational presentation on safer sex. Partnering with Brittany, Charles, and Delon, she made the choice to demonstrate safe condom application on an ear of corn. Everyone loved it.

Learn more at alliance.nyc/path-to-jobs.

Alliance Featured on NYN for HIV Testing Day

Alliance’s Director of community engagement and testing Arianne Watson spoke with NYN Media about our exciting partnership with the national Greater than AIDS partnership to provide more HIV tests.

Throughout the year, but especially during Pride Month, Alliance provides free rapid HIV tests at our offices across Manhattan and Alliance on the Move.

“It’s free at Alliance. It’s a simple finger prick. We provide pre and post-test counseling if any individuals come up positive and we can triage them to care,” said Arianne.

Alliance Issues Statement on Supreme Court's Reversal of Roe v. Wade

We are devastated and enraged by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down Roe v. Wade. Our Supreme Court has stripped us of our human rights, bodily autonomy, and reproductive freedom. Our government has said that women are second class citizens. Americans are allowed to choose whether or not to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but female Americans are not allowed to choose how to manage our own bodies. We can carry guns, but we can’t make reproductive health decisions.

Abortion is healthcare. ​Healthcare is a human right.

We need to stand up, raise our voices, and fight back to reclaim, maintain and sustain women’s freedom to choose, and every American’s fundamental right to access safe and quality healthcare.

Verywell Health Promotes Captain Condom

Alliance is proud to continue its collaborative professional relationship with Verywell Health, a top 5 health publisher, according to ComScore, and award-winning online resource for reliable, understandable, and up-to-date health information on the relevant health topics. In November, Alliance and Verywell Health connected to create the “Health Divide: HIV” series to share facts, social impact and socio-economic analyses of HIV, featuring intimate profile stories of Eugene Eppes, Ismael Ruiz, Lillian Anglada (for whom our Luis and Lillian Outreach Center is named) and Nicky Bravo.

Since May, Verywell Health has provided pro-bono advertising to Alliance’s safer sex mascot Captain Condom in their effort to reach more New Yorkers to promote a city of safer sex. Alliance thanks Verywell Health for their ongoing support!

Alliance Statement on Uvalde, Texas School Shooting

Alliance for Positive Change mourns the horrific murders in Uvalde, Texas. This tragedy marks the 27th school shooting so far this year. This senseless violence is preventable. We need meaningful gun safety reforms, such as universal background checks and mandatory waiting periods for gun applications. We cannot imagine the unbearable pain that the victims’ families, and the community of Uvalde, are experiencing. We fervently hope that the tears of a nation, and future gun safety reforms in memory of the victims, can bring them some measure of comfort in a time of so much pain.

Team Alliance Out in Full Force for AIDS Walk 2022

The first inperson AIDS Walk held since 2019 was a blast for the thousands of walkers and runners assembled in Central Park on Sunday, May 15. Alliance for Positive Change donors, staff, volunteers, and Peers came out in full force to show support for the cause of HIV advocacy and community celebration. Over 50 people walked with Team Alliance (check out photos HERE.)

Walkers were served coffee and snacks at the Alliance table, which had literature about many Alliance programs and services. Alliance’s safer sex mascot Captain Condom (@CaptainCondomNY on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) was on hand to distribute condoms and safer sex supplies.

Walkers received thank you bags filled with Alliance-branded swag, fans, pens, condoms, first aid kits, water bottles, sunglasses, Alliance shirts, and stress balls.

As part of the AIDS Walk tradition, Alliance staff and team members raise funds from friends, family, and community - and have already raised over $5,900 for Alliance programs and services.

Top Alliance fundraisers were staff members Dr. Erin McKinney-Prupis and Dr. Ebony L. Ross and Peer Luis Viera. Thank you, Erin, Ebony, and Luis.

It's not too late to give. To make a contribution, please visit https://ny.aidswalk.net/allianceforpositivechange today.

Alliance's Creative Writing Workshop: a Gateway to Positive Change

April is National Poetry Month, a month dear to Alliance since 1999, the year we launched our Creative Writing Workshop. Since then, this weekly gathering has been a safe, inspiring community where participants find their creative spark and share in Alliance’s comprehensive services and supports for people living with HIV and other chronic health conditions. 

“What started as an experiment with just four or five participants grew into an extremely popular group with as many as 25 or 30 participants at a time,” said Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, a poet and writer who facilitated the workshop from the beginning through its 16th year. “We wrote everything from sonnets and haiku to rap songs and love poems.”

One long-time member, Rosa Velez, first attended the group in 2008 looking for an avenue to process her grief over losing her partner, after someone suggested she release her emotions via creative writing. “A lot of those early poems were really angry, and dark,” Rosa said, noting that letting out heavy emotions can feel renewing. “Time passed and all of a sudden, my senses were awake, I could see everything in the world, and I realized that the people in the room with me had gone through so much more than I had. Something just clicked, they woke me up, and gave me so much perspective.”

Rosa has published poems such as “A Bird Cries Out” and “The Morning Sun” in Situations, Alliance’s annual collection of poetry by members of the group.

Like Rosa, Harriet McNeill joined the writing group looking for a way to express intense emotions, in 2015. “I never used to like writing, but it pulled some things that I needed to learn to understand who I am and who I’m meant to be. A lot of times, I was dealing through stuff, and I’d go to the group and write, write, write. It has inspired my life so much.” Harriet is the author of “Crossed Surroundings of a Precious Life” and more than a dozen other poems.

Today, Rosa and Harriet co-facilitate the group, which returned to in-person gatherings in September 2021. The Zoom format was challenging for the facilitators and participants, Rosa explained, because so much of the group’s power came from being physically surrounded by other people creating and imagining together. The group had drawn energy and inspiration from their weekly interactions in the Zwickler Family Poetry Room—Alliance’s sunny and inviting space in our Midtown Central site. This spacious room is named for Phil Zwickler, a renowned documentary filmmaker and AIDS activist who died of the disease in 1991—as well as Phil’s father Seymour, and brother-in-law, Michael Levine. Phil died young—at 36—at a time when effective treatments for HIV were few and far between. This beautiful space sponsored by the generosity of the Zwickler family—who have strongly supported the Creative Writing Workshop over many years—contributes to the group’s experience.

“It’s important to have lots of sunlight, lots of natural sounds for inspiration,” observed long-time group member and workshop leader Azeem Khan.

From Left to Right: Azeem Khan, Velia Hernandez, and Rosa Velez. Photo: David Nager/Alliance

To sustain that group connection despite the challenges of the pandemic, members of the Creative Writing Workshop met in the back garden of Alliance’s Keith Haring Center almost every month, wearing masks and social distancing. “We talked a lot about our fears and our lives,” Rosa explained.

Alliance’s Creating Writing Workshop has become an institution and tradition, with annual (pre-pandemic) readings at Barnes & Noble Union Square and yearly editions of Situations showcasing the participants’ talents and generously sponsored by the Phil Zwickler Charitable and Memorial Foundation Trust.

“Alliance keeps us close to Philip’s heart and a place he would have been proud to be involved with,” said Caren Levine, Phil’s surviving sister and Trustee of the Phil Zwickler Charitable and Memorial Trust. “We’ve loved going to the group’s meetings and the readings at Barnes & Noble. My brother Phil loved the arts and he believed in supporting organizations like Alliance that specifically support people in need.”

Some of Phil’s poems can be read on the foundation’s website.

The late Diane Dawson, Creative Writing Workshop member, at Barnes & Noble reading in 2011. Photo: David Nager/Alliance

Left to Right: Caren Levine, Sharen Duke, Bill Toler, Allen Zwickler, and “E” (a.k.a. EROBOS). Photo: David Nager/Alliance

Karlene Forbs has attended the Creative Writing Workshop, as well as Alliance’s Food and Nutrition and Women’s Services groups, for almost two decades. She says what’s great about the group is that “you don’t have to be an experienced writer to write—just use whatever comes to mind and inspires you.” 

Azeem told Metro that the group allowed him to “have a conversation” with his past instead of an argument. “When you suffer trauma, it plays in your head, and it’s like you start to argue in your own mind. With poetry, I got to put it on paper, see these words, understand these words, and connect with other people in the group. I think that’s very important.”

After 16 years of leading the group, Gerry moved away from New York City, and Alliance arranged for longtime members Rosa and Azeem to take the helm as the group’s facilitators. A special Poetry Leader training had already been offered for years, enabling other participants to run the group in Gerry’s absence, in keeping with Alliance’s commitment to building peer-based leadership capacity among our participants.

When Gerry left, Rosa and Azeem were more than ready to take on full responsibility for all the group’s logistics, including curating poems for Situations. “When Gerry worked with us, she was so knowledgeable and I would just soak it up like a sponge,” said Rosa. “When I took over, I had to really learn about poets, and metaphors, and different rhythms to coach people up like she did.”

“Alliance’s Executive Director and CEO Sharen Duke was well aware of how art and creativity connect to healing and well-being,” said Gerry, “Sharen was strongly committed to offering creative programming as part of Alliance’s comprehensive, whole-person approach, and really made it possible for this amazing, long-term creative phenomenon to happen.”

Twenty-three years later, the Creative Writing Workshop is an enduring testimony to the power of poetry and creative expression as a tool for healing and growth. It is a sustained community with an enormous body of literary work behind it—including one former participant, Iris Elizabeth Sankey-Lewis, who has written more than 5,000 haiku, a short-form Japanese style of poetic expression she learned about and fell in love with during her many years in the group.

“I am always so inspired by the poets in the Creative Writing group. The act of writing and expressing your emotions takes courage,” said Ramona Cummings, Alliance’s Chief Program Officer and Liaison to the Creative Writing Workshop. “Each poem is testament to their commitment to healing and overcoming life’s situations. I’m so grateful to be part of an organization that understands that healing, recovering, and overcoming can be accomplished through platforms such as creative writing.”

The group has yielded some unexpected benefits as well. Some poets have told us that the group helped them improve their English language and reading skills, develop presentation skills that supported their efforts to gain employment, and increase their confidence with public speaking.

“Creative writing was a safe place for me when I was dealing with homelessness, domestic violence, and later, with my HIV diagnosis,” said Ashley Johnson, an Alliance staff member who joined the workshop in 2007. “Seeing my poems published and reading them in Barnes & Noble, I felt accomplished. It boosted my self-esteem and started the process of me wanting to change my situation—the change I deserved.”

Ashley Johnson at the Creative Writing Workshop, 2009. Photo: David Nager/Alliance

The group has seen plenty of loss. Rufino Colón, Jr.—a longtime group member from day one, and one of the first Poetry Leaders to fill in when Gerry was away, passed away in March 2022. Rufino was a brilliant poet who facilitated groups comfortably and made participants feel at ease, according to several longtime members. He kept in contact with the group frequently for years after he was no longer a weekly participant, and he and Gerry maintained a correspondence until the end of his life.

Rufino Colon Jr. Photo Credit David Nager/Alliance

Rufino Colon Jr. Photo: David Nager/Alliance

Darryl Wells is yet another person who attests the group’s deep impact. “I came to the Creative Writing Workshop grieving the loss of my mother, who was only 15 years older than me—so she was like my mother as well as my sister, my cousin, my aunt. The act of being able to write really saved my life,” said Darryl. “Rosa wrote me a poem, that, when I was going through grief, I’d carry with me everywhere I went. When I couldn’t live for myself and was suicidal, I’d carry that poem with me.”

Previous issues of Situations can be read online here.