My name is Reverend Traylor. I'm a senior pastor, also the founder of the Project Hope Foundation, which is an organization that provides services for pastors, faith-based community as well as the community at large. Well, because of the HIV/AIDS issue in the community, I felt that as a pastor that I needed to step up and to begin to do something about this disease. The first thing I decided to do was to get educated. I needed to understand what the disease was about and how it worked. And so I began to get educated about the disease. I began to get training, certification, so that I can be able to empower the church, my people, my children, my daughters, as well as the community.
Well, you have to really be unique in getting this across to the community. You know, we provide HIV 101, but we also do outreach, we do barbeques, we do lunches. You can come in and you can bring the kids in and then you can educate about the disease. So you just have to use unique ways that you can get the word out.
Most ministers have health ministries. It doesn't take a whole lot to go out and get educated. You, first of all, can talk to your health department. Your health department provides classes and services all day long. They'll come out to your church. It's just a matter of fact of picking up the phone and just asking them to come and provide some services to enhance your health department. Sometimes we feel that people will come in our church and they'll destroy our church by saying things that we have talked against or doesn't want in our church, but it's not like that. It's not like that. You can call the county department. You can look in the phone book and find an agency that provides HIV services and call the director in. It's no cost. They're wanting to get into the faith-based communities, they're wanting to into the churches and provide education. So, it's easy, all you have to do is just pick up the phone and call. You can call the American Red Cross. The American Red Cross provides HIV/AIDS services and certification and training. There are many services in your community. You just have to pick up the phone.
People want to be loved. People that are living with the virus want to be loved. People that are living with any disease want to be loved. And so, it's about love. And once you become knowledgeable, once you understand that even though you are negative, you can still play a role by educating those that are not negative, by educating the youth, by talking about, you know, different risky behaviors that we are sometimes putting ourselves in. That's the way that someone who is negative can really empower the community.