Youngstown marchers’ message on World AIDS Day: Fight stigma, revive awareness

Youngstown marchers’ message on World AIDS Day: Fight stigma, revive awareness

By jeanne starmack

starmack@vindy.com

youngstown

Tammy Bellish of Struthers stood at the top of the Mahoning County Courthouse steps and faced the group gathered on the sidewalk below her.

“I’m an HIV-positive person,” she told the crowd of about 25 people who were there at 5 p.m. to observe World AIDS Day with a vigil and a walk from the cour‚ house to the B&O Station on Mahoning Avenue.

“I say I’m a bridge-builder,” Bellish continued. “I’m building bridges to those who aren’t HIV-positive so they can put a name and a face to HIV.”

In freely talking about their HIV status, Bellish and another speaker, Iris Almos of Youngstown, aimed to dispel the stigma that often comes with it.

“We have families, live, love and struggle, and yes, we die,” Bellish said.

“How are you going to respond to me and others like me?” she asked. “Stigma breaks hearts. It breaks spirits,” she continued.

“It’s important to me that everyone knows who we are, and it doesn’t make us any less of a person,” Almos said.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.