Hard to believe and sad to know, but here we are, 2020, and half of our “nice” fellow Canadians – according to surveys done by the Toronto HIV Hospital and hospice Casey House – would be nervous to come in contact with someone with HIV.
Further, 50% of Canadians would not eat food an HIV-positive person touched or was near; many also incorrectly believe HIV can be transmitted through skin-to-skin touch, saliva, or by sharing glasses or cutlery.
Not nice.
Is Ronald Regan still US President? In an effort to #smashstigma stemming from misinformation and fear that makes it feel like we’re stuck in the 1980s (when Regan himself took 8 years to publicly say as President the term “AIDS”,) Casey House is continuing it’s trailblazing, attention-getting work with a three-night dining event in March, June’s HIV-Positive Eatery.
Featuring a menu prepared by HIV-positive chefs, the event, named after Casey House founder, the late force of nature June Callwood, was pre-paved by an earlier pop-up edition several years ago, and then a pop-up spa a year later.
Both served to educate and hopefully eradicate some of the stigma still festering four decades later, but there remains much work to be done. (Buy tickets to June’s HIV+ Eatery here.)
In this podcast, hear from:
- Casey House CEO Joanne Simons, who takes us on a deep dive into ongoing stigma – including the online feedback to #SmashStigma initiatives – and how to not judge the judgmental
- HIV-positive chef Greg Robinson on what he learned about HIV and AIDS that he didn’t know before becoming one of the chefs for June’s HIV-positive eatery
- Social worker and host of the new Casey House podcast, Positively Speaking, Liz Creal on the journey she and her guests underwent in creating the new podcast
- Plus: a funny, irreverent flashback to last Valentine’s Day when podcast host, GGN publisher Shaun Proulx and Simons said they wanted to run over a judgemental girl with a car they were so annoyed with her.
Well that’s one way to #smashstigma.
- GGN Staff
