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Family's HIV/AIDS Education Efforts Span Several Generations
Written by Becky Orfinger, Staff Writer, RedCross.org
April 4, 2002 — When Clarence Cryer, Jr. heard about the American Red Cross African American HIV/AIDS Program in early 2000, he immediately signed up for a class. At the time, Cryer was an HIV/AIDS educator for the Miami-Dade County Health Department and was interested in using Red Cross techniques for targeting minority groups. When he finished the class, Cryer was so impressed that he not only made Red Cross training mandatory for the rest of the health educators on his staff, but convinced several members of his family to become Red Cross-certified HIV/AIDS educators as well.
The Red Cross began offering HIV/AIDS education classes in 1985.
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Two years later, Cryer's father Clarence Cryer, Sr., his sister Lisa Cryer and niece Marlisa Cryer have, in the words of the younger Clarence, "taken what they have learned from the Red Cross and run with it." At age 67, Clarence Sr., who retired in 2000 after a long career as a teacher, college administrator and principal, devotes much of his "free" time to educating African American senior citizens in Miami-Dade County about HIV/AIDS prevention. Lisa, who once served on the board of the South Dade Council of the Red Cross, conducts African American HIV/AIDS prevention education courses in her community when she's not working at her full-time job at Care Resource, a large HIV/AIDS service organization. Lisa's 14-year-old daughter, Marlisa, has already established herself among her peers as an HIV/AIDS educator and public speaker.
The Cryers are also very involved in their church, where Clarence Sr. is a deacon. "My father has definitely gotten many of the members of our congregation involved in HIV/AIDS education over the past couple of years," said Clarence Jr. Lisa has also worked for South Miami-Dade's AIDS Ministry, which integrates educational and faith-based tools to share the message about HIV/AIDS prevention. The Red Cross African American HIV/AIDS program is a primary source of information for the Ministry.
Clarence Sr. has brought many of his skills as an HIV/AIDS educator to his church and increased awareness of the importance of HIV/AIDS prevention. His church participates in the Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS, sponsored each year by the Balm in Gilead, a non-profit organization created to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS by building the capacity of faith communities. The elder Clarence also partnered with the church Nurse's Guild to build counseling teams of parishioners who offer support to people in the community directly affected by HIV and AIDS.
Red Cross Programs Target At-Risk Communities
The Red Cross has worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since 1985 to educate people about how to stop the transmission of HIV and respond sensitively to peers with HIV and AIDS. Red Cross HIV/AIDS prevention education programs also encourage people to apply the facts about HIV and disease prevention to their own behavior. As HIV/AIDS has continued to affect more and more people in the United States, the Red Cross has tailored its prevention and education programs for specific populations, such as young people, Hispanics and African Americans.
Red Cross HIV/AIDS programs are tailored to specific audiences.
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The Red Cross African American HIV/AIDS program intrigued the Cryers because minorities in Miami-Dade County have been disproportionately affected by the epidemic. Miami-Dade County, one of 67 counties in Florida, has 14 percent of the total state population and 40 percent of the state's HIV and AIDS cases. African Americans in Florida accounted for nearly half of the entire country's AIDS cases among men and three-quarters of cases among women in 1998. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) designated Miami-Dade County as one of 20 metropolitan areas eligible to compete for emergency HIV/AIDS prevention funding because of the significant impact HIV/AIDS has had there in African American communities.
"Despite the statistics, most people — especially young people — are not aware of the severity of the HIV/AIDS situation in Miami-Dade County," said Clarence Sr. "I know that by being an HIV/AIDS educator and teaching others how to be educators is the only way to make a difference." Clarence Sr. is looking forward to teaching several HIV/AIDS classes in places other than his hometown — he has been asked to travel to several cities in Georgia and Tennessee in the coming weeks.
Being part of a family of HIV/AIDS educators is an added bonus for the elder Clarence Cryer. "I've team-taught disease prevention classes with both my daughter and my granddaughter," he said. "I can't wait to partner with my son, who was already a premier HIV/AIDS educator before any of us got involved in this. So many in our community think they are invincible from this disease. Together, my family is working to dispel myths and teach people how to truly protect themselves."
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