An AIDS Foundation proposal to reassess the number of HIV positive people on its board has sparked criticism from its target group. Geraldine Johns reports.

There is a price to pay for gaining respectability when once you were on the outer. When you finally get inside the tent, the arrows start coming from your former partners in exile.

Exhibit number one: the New Zealand AidsFoundation. For many years it struggled to achieve acceptance from the public. The name alone earned it little in the way of tolerance or sympathy.

Now an established mainstream organisation with big-suit backing, the foundation is fielding criticism from its former bedmates - members of the gay community.

At the heart of their grievance is a move by the foundation to make major constitutional changes - and they don't like the look of at least one of the new proposals.

On the surface, at least, that would seem to make sense. The new moves include one which would see the removal of two places on the foundation trust board until now reserved for people living with HIV-AIDS.

"It's like having a Maori council without Maori or a women's council without women on it. Without that representation, it reduces itself to well-meaning paternalism," says Bruce Kilmister, one of the leading critics of the proposal.

Kilmister is chairman of Body Positive - described as New Zealand's leading national organisation for people living with HIV-AIDS. Established in 1992, Body Positive's membership constitutes over one-third of the country's HIV positive population. Latest statistics record 741 people (696 males and 45 females) with Aids and 1513 people (1292 males, 202 females and 19 sex not stated) have been found to be infected with HIV.

By comparison, the Aids Foundation - established in the mid-80s - provides a leading HIV and AIDS prevention, education and representation role. Unlike Body Positive, which is funded by community grants schemes, most of the foundation's work is funded through the Ministry of Health which provides an annual grant of just over $2 million. Add donated time and money and you are looking at an annual budget of $4m. It employs 29 full time staff and seven part-time.

Body Positive, which is staffed by volunteers, has an annual budget of $30,000.

Both the Aids Foundation and Body Positive speak highly of each other. But if there has been a certain symbiosis up until now, it could be seen to be facing a little strain in the near future. Kevin Hague, executive director of the foundation, says the two organisations have what is generally a very good relationship. "We co-operate with them," says Hague, while Kilmister - a founding trustee of the Aids Foundation - says Body Positive has worked very closely with the foundation for a number of years. He rates the relationship between the two as "excellent".

Buy it is Hague who has been the target of much of the criticism about impending changes to the foundation - starting when he penned a memo last November on proposed constitutional change within the foundation. That memo - sent to Body Positive and other organisations for people living with HIV - signalled a desire to switch to a more formal method of management.

The foundation's proposals, according to Hague, were:
• Reduce the size of the trust board from 11 to seven;
• Appoint rather than elect trustees - "such appointment to reflect the trust board's need for particular skills";
• Formalise the arrangements which until now have seen two places held on the board for people living with HIV-Aids.

A leafleting and advertising campaign opposing the latter amendment is now underway. The proposals have also featured prominently in the gay newspaper, Express, and on a gay website.

"Outrage," says Jay Bennie in his editorial on the GayNZ.com website. "A significant part of the foundation's work is facilitating the needs of people with HIV. And who better than a person who has contracted a deadly virus to understand the psyche of those similarly at risk?"

Bennie is former editor of the paper preceding Express, which has also raised the issue in its latest edition.

A reflection of the respectability the Aids Foundation is now so mired in lies in its headquarters. Tucked into an enclave of corporate inspired buildings five minutes from Queen St, it is no low-budget address.

"This is not running the bowls club," says Hague. "This is a substantial organisation." And that's why the foundation wants to smarten up its constitution.

"If you think about the issues the board deals with, rather than what the critics think it does . . . you need legal expertise, accounting and audit expertise and communications and strategic planning expertise. We also try to retain expertise in the broad areas of health services we are providing," says Hague.

His defense of the move to remove the two HIV-reserved seats is that board members should be recognised for the skills they bring to the board, rather than being HIV positive. "Effectively, we're changing the order of sorting. We're saying we want the skills that are necessary to do the work of the board and meet the legal responsibilities of the board. The kind of person who won't be on the foundation board in the future is the sort of person who's HIV positive but doesn't have the skills required of the board."

It is put to Hague that the life skills of living with an illness that carries all the gravitas of HIV-Aids is surely an apt qualification.

"We're not attempting to get rid of them, we intend to have HIV positive members on the board well into the future," he says - pointing out that the current chair and deputy chair are HIV positive.

It seems being HIV positive - alone is not enough though. The way Hague explains it, such a status - devoid of additional skills - could place a representative in a position of risk, because of the legal obligations and expectations created. And there is the further and unwanted possibility of tokenism, Hague concludes.

But that is not enough for Kilmister and other critics. The Body Positive chairman says the trust board should have a perspective of HIV and Aids at all levels. There is, Kilmister says, an expectation from the gay and HIV positive communities that the representation be there.

Kilmister is sitting at Body Positive's less salubrious offices just off the Karangahape Road sex strip. Above him is a photograph of Bruce Burnett - founder of the New Zealand Aids Foundation and the first person to die of Aids in New Zealand.

Kilmister further argues the proposed move contradicts the United Nations Greater Involvement of People with Aids principle. "New Zealand has a very proud record of actively combating this virus. Anyone living with HIV or Aids develops very acute life skills in maintaining life at an optimum level. That is an invaluable perspective that the board should have."

It should all shake down when the foundation holds its regular two-day meeting this month. That's when critics, with Body Positive leading the charge, will explain their opposition to the removal of the two reserved seats.

Kilmister is willing to accept the foundation is going through a process of self-examination and adjustment - "and that's always a good thing". It's just that his organisation doesn't like the look of one direction the foundation wants to take.

Hague, too, notes the changes wrought by time. The foundation has moved from an environment where it was on the outside, he says, and the nature of its tasks has changed, too. Along the way, it has tried to polish its shoes and don a suit - which has in part ostracised some of its target demographic.

If, in the early days, the foundation's focus was educating gay men about safe sex and HIV the shift now is towards a more empowering model. "We're supporting people to re-engage with the world, rather than driving them to the supermarket and readying them for death."

The shift has also seen a growing professionalism within the oganisation, which allows it to be more efficient and effective in what it does, adds Hague.

But Kilmister and his supporters are yet to be convinced.

"I'd like to see the board maintain its longstanding position of ensuring the HIV positive perspective is included at the trust board level and is reflected for those HIV positive people who have sacrificed and contributed so much to the foundation's work."

Links
- NZAF Website
- Body Positive Website