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A Journey of Hope -- Inspiring Stories of Courage and Unconditional Love
Sheridan & Shane | Stacey | Jonathan | John | Lesley | Joshua The images and text on this page are reprinted with permission. They are from a collection of photographs by Katja Heinemann of HIV-affected and infected children who attended Camp Heartland, with reflections from the camp's director, Neil Willenson. The book is called "A Journey of Hope -- Inspiring Stories of Courage and Unconditional Love." Their stories will shock and move you. Fortunately, because of near universal testing of pregnant women in the U.S., fewer children are born with HIV than ever before. However, with the growing pandemic among women, particularly women of color, many children now have parents struggling with HIV. We also cannot forget that, globally, the pandemic has orphaned 15 million children and less than 2 percent of HIV-positive children in need of treatment are receiving it.  Sheridan: At school, when people go around talking about my mom, like they start cracking, then I don't have to take that, I just go off at 'em, start fighting them. That's why I'm always out of school. 'Cause I always fight so much. And that's one thing I gotta stop doing... all that. That's why when people go around talking about anyone's mom, I tell 'em, pleae don't, 'cause I don't wanna hit you. So I walk away now, I guess. Like they'll go around, they'll say: "Your mom is so ugly, she's laying around the house so much." 'Cause she has depression, too, on top of HIV. They'll say: "She's too lazy, she's not even doing anything for you." I help her a lot, cleaning the house and other things. When people say that, I'm like: "You don't know how it is, 'cause you don't live with people like that." Shane: Everybody else got their mothers cleaning them, make their beds, do their laundry, do the dishes, cook for them and take care of them, but we have to do that by ourselves sometimes. But once in a good while my mom will get up and cook dinner and do stuff -- for us. Sheridan: And, like they have fathers, too. We don't. I think he left before we were even born. Shane: At home, if you said something, they'd be, like, blah blah blah, don't touch me, get away from me, leave me alone. Sheridan: Or if you have a girlfriend, they'd be like: "Oh my God, you never told me your mom had it." And then they overreact, and say: "Oh my God, you have it, too. 'Cause you were born and your mom had it," and blah blah blah, and it's like: "No, I don't have it because my mom got it after we were born." So, that's it. And then they're like: "But you still could've got it from kissing and hugging them." You're all wrong. You can't get it from hugging, you can't get it from kissing, and you can't get it from saliva. Shane: In school, there's some health teachers that say: "Oh, you can get HIV from kissing someone, like spitting on them or something." I told them that it's not true. And my brother's health teacher said the same thing, that you could get it from that. But then I asked my nurse and she said you can only get it from, like, unprotected sex, blood, breast feeding, being born with it, and... open wounds. That's the same thing as blood, though. Sheridan: Needles. Shane: Needles. Sharing needles. And that's it. Sheridan: When my mom had HIV, they were gonna try to take me and Shane away. Then, they didn't know a lot about HIV when she got it. Then they thought, Oh, we can get it from her when she sits on the toilet and then we sit on the toilet, or we can get it from sharing spoons. They didn't know anything about saliva that much until they researched and researched. So my mom had to go through a lot of stuff. Shane: They take you from your mother. It's like you been with your mother since she had you... Like, you been in your mother's stomach and it's a piece of her 'cause she been feeding us when she been eating, and if they take us away when we are little, it'd be taking another piece of her away, and she'd feel more tired and sick, and then she'd probably end up killing herself or something. Or dying... | ||
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