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.

September 25, 2008 | Pulitzer Center

Kwame Dawes reads from HOPE

Alex Amend

HOPE: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica

"It's about soul. It's about humanity. It's about beauty, and beauty can be ugly. But it's still beauty." - Kwame Dawes

Poet, writer, and Pulitzer Center grantee Kwame Dawes read from his forthcoming book of poetry and discussed the experiences that inspired his work early Monday evening at Busboys and Poets.

Dawes' work, "Hope", is an assemblage of poems he wrote while exploring and reporting on the parts of Jamaica hit hardest by HIV and AIDS for the Pulitzer Center last winter and spring.

September 22, 2009 | Awards

LiveHopeLove.com Wins an Emmy!

Pulitzer Center's multimedia website on the human face of HIV/AIDS in Jamaica has won an Emmy for new approaches to news and documentary programming, in the arts, lifestyle and culture category, announced Sept 21, at the 30th annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards at the Lincoln Center's Rose Theater in New York City.

September 22, 2009 | General news

Transforming journalism: HOPE & Glass Closet

Award-winning multimedia reporting projects on HIV/AIDS that combine print reporting, poetry, photography, video, radio, music and an open dialogue to engage the broadest possible audience.

Tuesday, September 22
12:00-2:00 pm: Panel discussion and screening
Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism
Third Floor Lecture Hall

Panelists:
Pulitzer Center Executive Director Jon Sawyer
HOPE Special Correspondent/Poet: Kwame Dawes
Glass Closet Filmmaker: Micah Fink
WorldFocus Producer: Lisa Biagiotti

August 13, 2009 | Project news

Yes Weekly: Dawes and Simmonds’ genius elevates Hope Wisteria to unimaginable heights

Near the finale of Wisteria, a multimedia performance based on Kwame Dawes' poems about the memories and experiences of African-American women growing up in the segregated South, Dawes stepped away from the microphone inside Hanes Auditorium on the campus of Salem College. He then gazed upon the five singers, musical collaborator Kevin Simmonds and the seven-member ensemble that helped bring his poems to life with a look that could best be described as a mixture of reverence and pride.