AIDS awareness in South Florida

Jesse Sanchez is trying to get on the MTV reality show “The Real World.” He has already gone through two auditions and is waiting to go through one more. Unlike other people who want to be one the show for fame, he said he wants to make viewers aware of HIV in South Florida.

Sanchez, a 19-year-old student at Miami-Dade Community College, has been HIV positive since last March. He said he wants to appear on the show because it will remind viewers that South Florida has a problem with HIV/AIDS.

But he doesn’t want people to know him as just a young man with a disease.

“A disease cannot define me,” Sanchez said.

His main dream is to be a news correspondent. His interest in journalism began when he was in third grade when he saw Jim Berry, a sportscaster, at his school. He has pursued that dream. He now works for Channel 4 as an associate producer.

For Sanchez, there isn’t enough media coverage and people are still getting sick. There are a lot of misconceptions out there, Sanchez said, which makes people not careful in their sex lives.

“People think it’s like you take one pill and you’re okay,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez is not on any medication. His T-cell count has not reached dangerously low just yet. He said a number of factors can bring it down, including stress. But Sanchez isn’t worried about going a career where stress is high when it comes to deadlines and competition to find good stories.

“In a weird way, I’m not stressed because I’m doing what I love,” Sanchez said.

When Sanchez found out he was positive for HIV, he said a tear ran down his face and wondered what he did to deserve it.

“There is not a day that goes by that you don’t say ‘why did this happen to me’,” Sanchez said.

He said he received support from family and friends but dating can be difficult. He likes dating older men who are accepting of the disease. However, he remembers meeting a man online and when Sanchez told him he was HIV positive, the man said he just wanted to be friends.

Ever since he contracted the disease, Sanchez said the experience has been him more driven to succeed as a journalist.

“I feel like I have to work faster,” he said.

Sanchez said he hopes that if he gets on “The Real World,” people will not only become aware of HIV/AIDS in South Florida but also realize that the disease cannot restrict someone of accomplishing things.

And while Sanchez hopes to get his message across on MTV, Michael Rajner is reaching out to people living with HIV/AIDS through activism.

Rajner, who has been HIV positive for 12 years, is a member of the National Association of People with AIDS, a non-profit organization that is out to help people with the disease. Rajner is planning on participating in the 2008 National Conference on African-Americans and AIDS, which will inform patients on how to get heath care and encourage them to become more active on public policy.

Rajner said he feels there isn’t enough courage on AIDS in South Florida.

“We can do much better,” Rajner said.

He has also spoken out against Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle for his remarks against the gay community. Last August, when Naugle and other conservative members held a press conference saying that gay men were fueling the spread of HIV/AIDS in the city because they were having sex in public restrooms, Rajner yelled, “You are demonizing people and it is wrong.”
Rajner said what the mayor was doing had nothing to do with public health issues but was an attack on the gay community.

“It was like propaganda,” he said.

Rajner, 37, has gone through several medications that did not sit well with his body. He said some medicine made him feel nauseous. Doctors had to remove his gall bladder at one point because it became inflamed.

For Rajner, it was about finding the medicine that was right for him.

“It’s very individual,” Rajner said. “My experience is not the same as everyone else’s.

Rajner said he has been on the same medicine now for three years. He has developed asthma. He used to ride his bicycle and rollerblade. But now he finds himself out of breath easily.

“You start to wonder if its age or AIDS,” Rajner said.

Rajner, who was born in New York City and moved to South Florida in 2000, had a Catholic upbringing where homosexuality was looked down upon.

“I come from a family that’s religious and it’s not accepted,” Rajner said.

When he told his family he was gay, his father accepted it but his stepmother reacted with hurtful remarks, Rajner said.

And when Rajner found out he contracted HIV, he said he accepted it. He had lost friends to the disease and his grandmother, mother and aunt to cancer when he was 13 years old. Ever since then, he said he has been activist for social cause.