Queers of the Desert

AIDS: The Central Issues (1990)
poster

By 1990 the Central Australian AIDS Action Group (CAAAG); precursor to the AIDS Council, was becoming increasingly concerned that the message about HIV was not being heard in Central Australia. Gay men and lesbians, the straight community, and the Aboriginal population all tended to view the disease as only relevant to the big cities and then still only a gay men's problem. Few had any direct experience of AIDS and most of the public health effort nationally was being directed to major population centres. Such were the times.

To remedy this situation CAAAG joined with the local NT Department of Health & Community Services and the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress to seek funding for a local conference that would give HIV/AIDS a higher local profile and provide an opportunity for potentially affected groups to meet and discuss. A key purpose of the event was to bring leading community and public health experts from the cities into the desert so that they could gain an appreciation of isolated communities and their needs and present local people with the latest developments in the field. It was also decided to bring a prominent PLWHA spokesperson to the event, and incorporate an unfolding of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Spotlight on Alice at AIDS meeting

Alice Springs will be the focus of a national AIDS conference tomorrow.
Delegates from around Australia including educators, doctors and those living with the virus will speak at the two-day seminar, titled the 1990 Central Australian AIDS Conference.
People Living With Aids founding member Paul Young will speak during the weekend and will be joined by Aboriginal AIDS/STD program co-ordinator Bernadette Hudson and Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations president Dr David Plummer.
Subjects on the agenda include IV drug use, youth and AIDS, Aborigines and AIDS plus gay and bisexual members of the community.
Open to the public, the conference will host the first Northern Territory display of the Australian AIDS Memorial Quilt Project.
The quilt is based on he US memorial quilt which honours people who have died - from AIDS.
The Australian quilt measures 150 sq m and celebrates the life of Australians who have died from AIDS.
The quilt unfolding ceremony will take place at 9:30 am tomorrow in the Araluen auditorium, the venue for the two-day conference. A valuable part of the weekend will be a series of three workshops touching on treating and counselling, AIDS in the Workplace, and the role of community groups.

Australia's AIDS Memorial Quilt will be unfolded at a special ceremony at Araluen tomorrow.

advocate
Centralian Advocate: April 27, 1990 p.7
© News Ltd: used with permission.
 

A grant was obtained from the Commonwealth Department of Health and favours and donations begged from all and sundry. Australian Airlines (now Qantas) came to the rescue and donated airfares in return for designation as the official airline and a little publicity. Locals offered spare beds and home hospitality to accommodate those interstate presenters who couldn't pay for their own which, in several cases, made for mutually educational experiences.

The event was held at the Araluen Arts Centre in Alice Springs on April 28 & 29 with additional workshops around town on Monday 30, and was conducted entirely by a small army of tireless volunteers. It was hugely successful and brought together several hundred people, many more than the organisers had anticipated. In true Central Australian style the conference drew people, particularly Aboriginal, from well over the South Australian and Western Australian borders. It was certainly the first time locally that such an unlikely combination of interested parties had come together for a single purpose.

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AIDS: The Central Issues

On the morning of Saturday, 28 April there will be an opening address by the convenors, an address by the Hon Steve Hatton, NT Minister for Health & Community Services and the unfolding of panels from the Australian aids (sic) Memorial Quilt. There will also be four plenary sessions during the course of the Conference. The topics and speakers for these are:

1. Living with AIDS -Andrew Morgan
2. Aborigines and AIDS - Aboriginal Panel
3. AIDS as an STD - Rob Moodie
4. Peer Education - Jeanette Baldwin

There will also be three workshop sessions each containing four parallel topics:

Session 1
1. Youth and AIDS - J Baldwin/M Brooks
2. Women and AIDS - L Crooks/K Leitch
3. Treatment - P Jones
4. Aborigines and AIDS* - Panel

Session 2
1. Testing and Counselling - L Crooks/P Jones
2. Role of Community Groups - D Plummer
3. Gay & Bisexual Men and AIDS - S Nish
4. Aborigines and AIDS (cont.)* - Panel
Session 3
1. AIDS in the Workplace - P Jones/J Baldwin
2. Legal and Ethical Issues - S Nish/D Plummer/L Crooks
3. Substance Use and AIDS - K Leitch
4. Aborigines and AIDS (cont.)* - Panel

Additional Workshops - Monday, 30/4/90

Counselling - L Crooks, 9:00-11:30 AIDS/STD Unit, Alice Springs Hospital.
Professional Development for Health Care Workers - P Jones, 12:30-1:30, John Hawkins Lecture Theatre, Alice Springs Hospital.
Aborigines & AIDS - Aboriginal Panel, 9:00-4:00, Aboriginal Congress, Gap Rd.

*Some or all of the Aborigines and AIDS workshop sessions may be closed to non-Aboriginal delegates at the discretion of Aboriginal participants. Please check before attempting to join these sessions.

Official Conference speakers and other guests invited by Convenors include:
Jeanette Baldwin - National Education Officer, Aust Federation of AIDS Organisations.
Dr Phil Jones - Clinical Physician, AIDS Unit, Prince Henry Hospital, Sydney.
Levinia Crooks - President, AIDS Council of NSW. Project Coordinator, National PLWA Coalition.
Dr Rob Moodie - Senior Medical Officer for AIDS, STD Unit, Victorian Dept of Health. Consultant, World Health Organisation, AIDS Prevention. Former Senior Medical Officer, Central Australian Aboriginal Congress.
Andrew Morgan - Member of the Sydney PLWA community.
Simon Nish - Solicitor, Executive & Policy, NT Government
Dr David Plummer - President, Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations. Senior Lecturer in Microbiology, Monash University. Sessional Consultant to AIDS Referral Clinic, Melbourne STD Clinic.

Members of the Aboriginal Panel will include:
Frank Djana - Aboriginal AIDS Educator, NTDH&CS, Alice Springs.
Beryl Gorring - Aboriginal Health Worker, Palm Island, Old.
Albert Gorring - Palm Island resident.
Bernadette Hudson - Coordinator, Aboriginal AIDS/STD Program, NTD&HCS.
Punch Thompson - Pitjantjatjara man from Kenmore Park, SA.
1990 Central Australian AIDS Conference
AIDS: The Central Issues
Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs
April 28 & 29, 1990

Friday 27/4/90
CAAAG offices first floor cnr Gregory Tce & Todd Mall
12:00-5:00 Registration CAAAG offices
5:00-8:00 Reception CAAAG offices

Saturday 28/4/90 Araluen
8:00-9:00 Registration Foyer
9:00-9:05 Convenors' Address Auditorium
9:05-9:30 Ministerial Address Hon. Steve Hatton, NTDHCS Auditorium
9:30-10:15 Quilt Unfolding Ceremony Auditorium
10:15-10:45 MORNING TEA Bistro
10:45-12:00 Plenary Session 1 Living With AIDS Andrew Morgan Auditorium
12:00-1:3 0 LUNCH Bistro
1:30-2:45 Workshop Session 1 Refer attached
2:45-3:15 AFTERNOON TEA Bistro
3:15-4:30 Plenary Session 2 Aborigines & AIDS Panel of Aboriginal Speakers Auditorium
4:30 Close of day
7:30-1:00 Dinner and Disco Mia Pizza
Sunday 29/4/90 Araluen
8:00-9:00 Registration Foyer
9:00-10:15 Plenary Session 3 Peer Education, Jeanette Baldwin AFAO Auditorium
10:15-10:45 MORNING TEA Bistro
10:45-12:00 Workshop Session 2 Refer attached
12:00-1:3 0 LUNCH Bistro
1:30-2:45 Workshop Session 3 Refer attached
2: 45-3:15 AFTERNOON TEA Bistro
3:15-4:30 AIDS as an STD Dr Rob Moodie, Vic Health Auditorium
4:30-5:00 Concluding Address Auditorium
5:00 Close of Official Proceedings

Monday 30/4/90 CAAAG offices/ AIDS/STD Unit, A. S. Hospital/ as advised at Conference
9:00 onwards additional workshop sessions
(subject to demand)



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There were many memorable moments and important outcomes from the conference. The unfolding of the Quilt and the addition of local panels for several gay men starkly highlighted the local relevance of HIV and let locals know that AIDS was real and here, as did the reflections of Andrew Morgan; then one of Australia's longest surviving PLWHA's. Both had been placed at the beginning of proceedings to ground the whole event in the realities of people's lives. The Aboriginal and gay men's discussion groups led to the spontaneous formation of an Indigenous Australian men's group who went on to organise Anwernekenhe; the first queer black men's sexual health conference in the country, held at Hamilton Downs in 1994. And, as hoped, local activists and health professionals were strongly linked in to the national effort and provided with access to networks and communication that had previously been difficult for them to access.

Ultimately, this was an event that not only raised HIV/AIDS as an issue of relevance in the minds of Centralians, it also firmly established Central Australian communities as key participants in the national response to the disease.
John Hobson
 

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