Arts group wants to improve HIV dialogue in local African, Caribbean and black communities

Pastor Enock Okwaro, left, a member of Ribbon Rouge Foundation's African Caribbean Black Caucus and Barhet Woldemariam, a facilitator at a community health meeting. (Submitted by Ribbon Rouge Foundation)

The Ribbon Rouge Foundation wants to remove the stigma around HIV. 

When it comes to shame and silence around HIV-positive status in Alberta, some significant strides have been made since the height of the global AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. 

But for African, Caribbean and black women with HIV, not much has changed, the Edmonton-based advocacy group says.

"The way African people get treated very often by our own family as well as the health care providers and social service and supportive services is just different," said Morẹ́nikẹ́ Ọláòṣebìkan, president and founder of the Ribbon Rouge Foundation, in an interview on CBC Edmonton's Radio Active on Tuesday.  

"And then because there's no voice or awareness it feels worse in our community," Ọláòṣebìkan said, adding there is similar "intersectional stigma" for transgender and Indigenous people with HIV. 

"The fact that people are living normal lives has led to a significant improvement in awareness and knowledge and a decline in stigma overall, but then there are certain priority populations where that's not the case."

It's taken longer than in other communities, but Ribbon Rouge says its making ground in decreasing stigma around HIV in local African, Caribbean, and black communities.

Although African, Caribbean and black people are about 3.5 per cent of the Canadian population, they constitute about 13.9 per cent of those living with HIV, Ọláòṣebìkan said.

"Yet not a lot of people of African descent are aware of these sort of statistics in Alberta. And even in health care, it's not a topic that gets discussed often enough…”