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Valerie
A. Reeder-Bey is a fighter and a survivor. She is a determined and
enthusiastic wife, mother and grandmother living with AIDS. It is
remarkable that she is still fighting for her life considering a past
plagued with family problems, drug addition and HIV. Every day she
is fighting for her life and the lives of others with bravery, strength,
and conviction. She has been involved with issues concerning
HIV/AIDS since the late 1980's when she learned of her own HIV Positive
status. One of her many contributions has been awakening the
African-American Community in the Northern Virginia Area to the
realities and the changing face of AIDS and encouraging this community
to do what is right, good, and possible. Valerie inspires us to
talk honestly with each other and with our children by spreading
awareness instead of panic and fear. She has involved our
community leaders, churches, and civic associations to embrace their
true responsibilities to our women, men, and children living with
HIV/AIDS . . . and to all persons struggling with life's issues.
Growing up with low self-esteem and falling victim to drugs, pimps and
prostitution is far behind her now. Valerie is an energetic,
active and well-respected woman who is using her illness as an
opportunity to educate others through love, compassion and intensity.
When Valerie first found out she was infected with HIV she went home and
told her mother. Because of her mother's own lack of knowledge and fears
about the disease, she put Valerie out of the family home. Valerie
persevered.
In April 1993, she founded Heaven In View, Inc., and "A Positive
Force" a nonprofit organization providing services for people
infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS in all stages of the disease.
HIV, Inc.'s mission is to provide education and prevention information
and support services to minority and disadvantaged population infected
with or affected by HIV or AIDS.
She is an advocate for People Living With AIDS (PLWA) on a local,
National and International level. She is a public speaker for Heaven In
View, Inc., the National Association for People Living With AIDS, the
Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry and many other speaker's bureaus
throughout the country. Her presentations empower the men, women and
young adolescents at the high school, colleges, churches, and community
groups of many communities with the one real weapon against HIV/AIDS -
Education. Her experience has taken her to more than 20 of
fifty-two states nationally including Hawaii speaking to hundreds of
people about AIDS. She says with great effectiveness "Every
day a new door opens for me, and every day I walk through it."
Valerie was a delegate to the Tenth International Conference on AIDS in
Yokohama Japan and the Eleventh International Conference in Vancouver,
British Columbia. Invited to Korea by the Korean Government
to deliver the keynote speech at the opening of STOP AIDS, Korea's first
and only AIDS relief organization, she was invited to return to Seoul to
speak at the opening of the Chu Clinic, which provides services to
people living with AIDS. Valerie was the first person to put a
face on AIDS in this country, which resulted in her being featured in
Cosmopolitan Magazine and many other news articles, and poster ads'.
Both STOP AIDS and The Chu Clinic have become sister organizations of
Heaven In View.
In 1993, Valerie was invited by the White House to join President Bill
Clinton at Georgetown University as he spoke on the AIDS epidemic.
Today, Valerie shares her knowledge and personal experiences as a PLWA
(Person Living With HIV/AIDS) representative on the Northern Virginia
Planning District Commission and the Metropolitan Regional HIV Health
Service Planning Council for Ryan White Funds. She was the first HIV
positive chair of the Northern Virginia HIV Consortium. The Consortium
is comprised of representatives from all Health Departments in Northern
Virginia, the Directors of AIDS Service Organizations and
representatives of the PWA community. She holds a seat on the National
Community Advisory Board of the Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) - a
four-year natural history study for HIV - Positive women and women who
are HIV - Negative. She has appeared on several local news
programs and has been written about in over 500 news papers world wide
including The Washington Post, The Arlington Journal, Cosmopolitan
magazine in Japan and featured in the October 1998 and the January 1999
issues of POZ magazine. Valerie has been a strong voice for HIV
Positive women throughout these United States fighting for comprehensive
and reliable services.
Valerie envisioned, organized and emceed the first-ever candle light
vigil in Arlington Virginia on December 1, 1993, in commemoration of
World AIDS Day. This momentous vigil was significant because she bought
together the African-American Community, churches, community leaders,
and civic associations to form a united front against communities
affected with AIDS and those Persons Living With AIDS.
She frequents the jails, detention centers, street corners, crack houses
and anywhere she feels there is a need for her work. These are places
most people do not go to give help. Valerie started and
facilitated a support group to empower women with AIDS at Lorton
Penitentiary. Valerie helped prepare the women for reentry into
the community by talking about risk reduction, safer sex, self-esteem
and other issues that become an obstacle for people living with the
disease. She says that incarcerated people are the forgotten population
and they seem to need the most help. Whenever Valerie does a
presentation she end by saying "I have AIDS . . . AIDS does not
have me." This statement best describes the fighting spirit
Valerie brings to the work she does.
In 1994, She wrote a children's book "My Grandma Has AIDS,
Annisha's Story" to help her brake the stigma of AIDS with her
granddaughter. My Grandma has AIDS, is a fully illustrated fifteen
page children's book with colorful detailed pictures that include
animals, trees, books, other children and a school. In the book
Annisha let children know that her grandma is no different from theirs
except her disease. Annisha tells children all the wonderful things she
and her grandma do together like homework, reading, brushing her teeth,
cooking, and dressing. Annisha also tells them that she hugs her
grandma, kisses her and loves her very much. This book appeals to
children because it speaks on a delicate subject from a child's
perspective to other children. Since November 1999 there has been over 1
million Annisha's Storybooks printed and distributed.
Valerie admits there are times when she becomes quite overwhelmed with
the amount of things she does. When asked what makes her do so
much she simply says, "I must continue because I don't want anyone
to have to go through what I went through when I found out I had this
disease. I was all alone, in a lot of emotional pain and wanted
someone to put their arms around me and just hug some of that pain away.
I needed to know someone was there for me, but no one was there. I
soon learned I had to be there for myself."
Valerie is just an ordinary woman who has learned and grown from her
circumstances and mistakes to become an extraordinary woman. She
is a person with whom others can sit, talk and cry. Valerie has
the ability - either one-on-one or with a group - to transform this
disease and make it all better. She is the kind of woman that
makes everywhere she goes a better place in which to live and work --
providing that extra hope and love that we all need.
Valerie has taken what most would accept as a death sentence and
transform it into a benediction of empowerment to everyone affected by
and living with HIV/AIDS. Valerie is now working on the
production of her play and her second book, her biography. Contact
Valerie Reeder Bey for speaking engagements at (703) 590-0315.
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