Which do you serve?
dallasvoice.comHIV work is about fulfilling the mission, not your ego As I shut my laptop a few Fridays ago, I let out a big sigh. I’d just finished reading an email from an individual whose focus was clearly self-interest, despite writing to me — a person living with HIV and the senior advisor on community engagement at the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care.
A million thoughts ran through my mind. Most of them revolved around how exhausted I was from receiving emails like this, as well as doubts concerning how much longer I could stand working in a field that was supposedly about improving the quality of life of people living with HIV and “ending the epidemic” but that increasingly feels overrun by individuals who are preoccupied with delivering vapid speeches, claiming credit for work completed by others and posing for selfies. “How did we lose our way?” I asked myself. “Have we forgotten the point?
Can we find our way back to the missions we’ve reduced to empty buzzwords? Is this who we are now?” It’s no secret to anyone in our field that times are tough.
Many organizations are struggling to secure funding, as primary funders of our work are taking their foot off the gas even as we approach the Sustainable Development Goals of 2030.
