AIDS fundraiser planned for tonight

In recognition of World AIDS Day, a group of Yukon artists is joining forces with Blood Ties Four Directions tonight to help fight the battle against AIDS/HIV in the territory.

In recognition of World AIDS Day, a group of Yukon artists is joining forces with Blood Ties Four Directions tonight to help fight the battle against AIDS/HIV in the territory.

Twenty Yukon artists have donated their work to a silent auction being held tonight at the Yukon Artists at Work gallery.

All the proceeds will go to Blood Ties Four Directions, a Whitehorse-based society that provides support to people infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS, and works to prevent the further spread of the deadly virus through education.

“You get a fabulous piece of art and you get to know that you are helping to solve a very serious problem,” Patricia Bacon, executive director of Blood Ties, says of the event.

According to the Department of Health and Social Services, there are 47 reported cases of HIV/AIDS in the territory, but as Bacon points out, that can be a misleading figure.

“Twenty per cent of Canadians with HIV don’t know they have it,” she says. “There is no reason to think it would be any different in the Yukon.”

Add to that, she says, all those who have been tested outside the territory and have not reported their results to the regional health care system.

These unknown and undisclosed cases pose a serious risk, especially in smaller communities, Bacon says, and education is one of the most powerful ways to prevent more infections.

HIV/AIDS can be spread a number of ways; including through sexual intercourse, shared needles, and unsterilized tattooing equipment.

The virus is carried in a person’s blood and cannot be transmitted through shaking hands, hugging or kissing, as was commonly believed when the disease first appeared in the 1980s. At that time, it was thought to be limited to the gay male community and to intervenous drug users, but that is no longer the case, if it ever was.

“Heterosexual transmission is still one of the most common ways for women to be infected,” Bacon says, adding that women who “have less power to negotiate safe sex,” are especially vulnerable.

One place that Bacon points to as a major concern is the Whitehorse Corrections Centre. She says several aspects of inmate life put the men and women in jail at a greater risk.

“Prison tattoos are a very popular part of the prison culture,” she says, and HIV can be passed on through tattooing ink mixed with blood and unsterile tattooing needles. Intervenous drug use is also prevalent in jails, where, Bacon says, many drug users report they use a needle to inject drugs for the first time.

“Injecting is the fastest, most effective way to use,” Bacon says, “It is also less noticeable (than smoking drugs). And because there is no needle exchange, many people will use one needle.

“All you need is one person in that chain of 20 to be infected for everyone to be at risk.”

Both tattooing and intervenous drug use are outlawed within the walls of the WCC, says Chris Ross, a spokesman for the Yukon Department of Justice; and the jail does not provide any safe tattooing or needle exchange programs.

“Inmates found with needles are charged with a contraband offence,” he says.

But some work is being done at the jail to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. All inmates have the choice to be tested when they enter the facility, and anyone testing positive is given regular medical treatment.

There are condoms available upon request and a public health nurse goes to the facility twice a week to give inmates information and advice on HIV/AIDS, as well as Hepatitis C, another blood-borne illness.

Bacon says more needs to be done in terms of harm reduction in jails and prisons.

“It’s a denial of health care,” she says. “Do we really want to be sending people back to their communities with HIV or Hepatitis C?”

This is the major concern Bacon has about the spread of these diseases within jails; upon release, a person returns to their community where they may pass it on through sex or shared needles.

Blood Ties Four Directions also goes to the WCC to offer education and advice to the inmates, “whenever they can,” Ross says. That project is one of the many that will be helped out by the money raised at tonight’s auction.

Among the pieces on the block is a sculpture of an African grandmother. The artist, and co-ordinator for the show, Harreson Tanner, says he was inspired by a collection of photographs of grandparents raising children orphaned by AIDS.

“But AIDS is not just an African problem, he says. “In Canadian circles, the first nations peoples bear a larger percentage of the new AIDS cases, and of course we have 14 first nations here in the territory.”

Tanner says many of the pieces in the show were inspired by the plight of AIDS sufferers, and although some are dark or provocative, others focus on hope and survival.

This is the second year that the two groups, YAAW and Blood Ties, have come together to raise funds. Last year, they raised close to $3,000, and Tanner says he hopes to surpass that this year.

The wine and cheese auction will be held at the YAAW gallery on Glacier Road., from 4-8 p.m. today.

Blood Ties Four Directions offers free, confidential HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis tests every Wednesday afternoon at their offices at 4230 Fourth Ave. The test takes only a few minutes, Bacon says, and the results are returned in about 10 days.