CHICAGO (CBS) — The HIV/AIDS epidemic hasn’t gone away, and in queer communities of color, infection rates are still alarmingly high.
That’s what prompted six community organizations to create Chi Wellness Portal, a new digital platform providing resources to the city’s Black gay, bisexual, and same-gender loving men.
“We’re doing dance classes, fitness classes, group fitness classes, cooking demonstrations,” said Jerome Montgomery, executive director of Project VIDA, a Little Village-based non-profit focused on HIV education.
“What we found that is that organizations siloed in doing their specific work was not always the most effective thing,” said Pastor Charles Straight, of East Side United Methodist Church. “We brought together people with expertise in all of these areas.”
Montgomery and Straight are two leaders of the Mind, Body and Soul Health & Wellness Circle, an initiative of six Chicago area groups led by Black queer men, which created the Chi Wellness Portal.
The portal and its partnering app host a bevy of information; from trusted doctors to queer-friendly spiritual spaces.
Dr. Keith Green, executive director of the Chicago Black Gay Men’s Caucus, said their main focus is “addressing the whole person from a health and wellness perspective, and not a disease perspective.”
Green is credited with pulling the six organizations together for the Mind, Body and Soul Health & Wellness Circle.
“I don’t know of any intentional collaborative efforts that have brought this number of organizations together with different focuses,” Green said.
They have different focuses, but the same goal.
“Many of us within the collaboration have been organizations that were founded in response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic,” Straight said.
At present, Black communities continue to have the highest rates of HIV. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate 40% of all people in the U.S. living with HIV are black, despite African Americans making up just 13% of the population. Transmission rates within in Black communities remain highest among gay men, with more than 75% of new infections occurring from male-to male sexual contact.
“We really need to do something different to really make a true difference to get to the goal of getting to zero,” Montgomery said.
Straight said that something different looks like creating a space where “everything can be addressed in one place” for free.
On top of referrals and events, the platform has podcasts, programming, group workout classes, and an extensive calendar of events.
“It’s the place to go for anything happening Black gay in Chicago,” Green said.
They set a goal of hitting at least 100 users by the end of their first year, but surpassed that goal ahead of time.
The response was overwhelming, which they said even further solidifies the need and the thirst for it within the Black queer community.
Green said it’s not just good for the folks who sign up, “it’s good for us, too, which is the thing I’m most excited and loving most about it.”
