The Vancouver Initiative for AIDS Innovation

In 2007 and 2008 I started volunteering with AIDS Vancouver for the Custom Chopper fundraisers. Before that, I had very little experience with promoting safer sex, and HIV/AIDS awareness in general. I was also certain that I hadn’t encountered too many people whose lives HIV and AIDS had affected.

At the time, it was already very evident to me that the AIDS pandemic was one of the largest and fastest growing global health concerns that my generation needed to address, with medical treatment, scientific advancement and a steady flow of public information. But I also realised that I was fairly out of touch with the people affected by the disease, or what needed to be done to help the community excel.

During my time with AIDS Vancouver as a volunteer fundraiser and community outreach worker, I came to realize that HIV and AIDS share a common face in every community, be it at a hip-hop event in New Westminster or a motorcycle show in Abbotsford. Everywhere that I went, I came across people living with AIDS or people who had a loved one who was living with or had died from the disease.

I was right that AIDS is one of the largest health concerns of my generation, but I was wrong in thinking that I hadn’t encountered many people who had been affected by the pandemic. The truth is that whether we are aware of it or not, the AIDS pandemic really affects everyone in some way or another.

© John Pigeon