Project

Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica

Poet and writer Kwame Dawes travels to Jamaica to explore the experience of people living with HIV/AIDS and to examine the ways in which the disease has shaped their lives. The journey brings him in touch with people who tell their stories, share their lives and teach him about resilience, hope and possibility in the face of despair. Some are living with the disease; others have committed their lives to HIV/AIDS care.

Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica is a multi-media reporting project: an extended essay by Kwame Dawes for The Virginia Quarterly Review (Spring 2008), two short documentaries for the public-television program Foreign Exchange, a collection of poetry inspired by his reporting, a performance of the poems set to music by composer Kevin Simmonds, and LiveHopeLove.com, an interactive web presentation that synthesizes audio and text versions of the poems, the Foreign Exchange videos, additional video interviews, the music, and photography by Joshua Cogan.

Launch the Emmy and Webby award-winning interactive site LiveHopeLove.com

The Pulitzer Center's reporting on HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean was made possible with support from the MAC AIDS Fund.

June 02, 2008 | General news

Hope: The Performance

In 2007 Ghanaian-Jamaican writer Kwame Dawes embarked on a research trip to Jamaica to explore the experience of people living with HIV/AIDS and to examine the ways in which the disease was shaping their lives.

Dawes responded to this experience through poems that capture the rich humanity of those he met and the complex emotions that come from contending so intimately with issues of mortality, stigma and grace. Dawes and his long-time collaborator, composer Kevin Simmonds, set the poems to music that showcases the spirit of Dawes's work.

April 14, 2008 | Project news

"Positive Outlook" airs on DePauw University's The World is Talking, 4/14/08

"Positive Outlook," a Pulitzer Center-commissioned video that follows one HIV+ campaign speaker as she tries to stamp out the stigma of the disease, aired on DePauw University's The World is Talking television program. The program aired on April 14, 2008.

View the video and the rest of the program on The World is Talking blog.

Another Pulitzer Center-commissioned video, "Talking HIV in Jamaica," will air on the next The World is Talking program.