Horsefall supports holistic approach to dealing with AIDS

Ron Horsefall believes that overcoming fear and denial is the key to tackling the growing AIDS epidemic among Canada's Aboriginal population. Fear and denial, he said, are what prevents people from getting the facts about HIV and AIDS-about what it is and how it is transmitted. Fear and denial keep people from being tested when they think they may have contracted the virus. And fear and denial are why people with HIV and AIDS continue to face discrimination.

Horsefall works with All Nations Hope AIDS Network, helping to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS. As someone who has been living with the virus for 20 years, he said that, through his workshops, he tries to "bring a human face to HIV and AIDS and just show people that it's not a death sentence."

Horsefall is from Pasqua First Nation. He spent much of the last two decades living elsewhere, then returned home about a year-and-a-half ago as part of his journey to heal himself. It's a journey he believes he wouldn't have begun if he hadn't been infected with HIV.

"There is so much negativity around HIV and AIDS," he said. "I have chosen to look at the positive things that HIV has given me, because I have had to sober up as a result of my diagnoses. And it led me to my culture and my spirituality, because I was a residential school survivor and as a result of the residential school experience I knew very little about my culture and spirituality.

And that led me to my identity as an Aboriginal person, and as a two-spirited person, because I'm two-spirited as well," he said. "Also it led me into my journey from the head to my heart, you know, dealing with all the issues in my life. And eventually it led me back home to here, in Saskatchewan."

It's this positive attitude and outlook that Horsefall shares when he makes his presentations, and it has helped him in his efforts to reach out to people in the audience and start to break down the barriers of fear and denial, he explained.

"You know, it really hits home to a lot of people. They see me with HIV and AIDS and the work that I'm doing, getting out there in the community and working past that fear and denial. Being an Aboriginal person and saying 'Yes, I do have HIV and AIDS and yes, this is what happened to me in my life and yes, these are the choices I made and yes, this is what I'm doing for myself.' It's very empowering to people in their lives," he said.

Horsefall works to educate the public about HIV and AIDS through his presentations. But he also sends a message of support and understanding to those who have contracted the virus, many of whom come up to him after his presentations to share their experiences with him as openly as he had shared his experiences with them.

Horsefall was one of the thousands of delegates from around the world who travelled to Toronto to take part in the 16th International AIDS Conference held Aug. 13 to 18. He said he was disappointed with the conference itself, both because there weren't enough workshops dealing with Aboriginal people, and because those that were held didn't take a holistic approach.

"I am living with HIV and AIDS and I've had to do a lot of work on myself, a lot of healing work. And what I found out about that was a lot of my issues, even with HIV, even recovering from alcohol and drugs and all my sexual abuse stuff and residential school stuff, they all had to do with the emotional and spiritual. And that's where the main problem is with HIV and AIDS," he said.

"I didn't see any workshops that dealt with that," Ron Horsefall said.

"The Aboriginal approach is the medicine wheel approach ... dealing with the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. And so the emotional and spiritual aspects were totally left out. It was all about the surface stuff and just dealing with the surface stuff is not producing any results, any declines in any infection rates, because they are going higher and higher and higher."

Increasing rates of HIV infection is even more of a problem within the Aboriginal community, where the prevalence of activities like sharing needles and having unprotected sex contribute to the growing problem, Horsefall said.

"Those two categories are high risk behaviour and high risk behaviour doesn't just drop out of a blue sky. There are circumstances and situations that lead up to that high-risk behaviour. And you cannot just simply throw a pamphlet or a poster and a workshop at high risk behaviour and expect it to change because it goes much deeper than that."