August 28, 2019 - Video, HIV in My Generation: For Young People and HIV - “It Is Real”

Kendrick Forte is an ATN Youth Expert and Advocate for Health (ATN-YEAH). In this video, he shares his thoughts on his generation and HIV.

Press play to watch, and view a transcript below the video.

 

 

Transcript: How many people actually have HIV, and how prevalent it is, is very scary. And the fact that it’s in my generation the way that it is - it’s kind of just like - it’s a shocker. Because I was like, how is this happening? Especially from listening to people tell me about how they got it and stuff like that, I constantly ask myself, how is this happening?

My name is Kendrick Forte, I am 24. I am from the country part of North Carolina like, uh…

If I met someone living with HIV, I would tell them that they’re gonna be ok. There’s nothing wrong. Like, that’s it, you’re going to be ok. There’s nothing wrong. Because it could be… worse.

But as long as you don’t let the disease control you, and you control the disease, you’re good to go. You’re still the same person that you are. Nothing about you will change. All you have to do is take a pill once a day, every day.

If I met a young person that had absolutely no knowledge of HIV, or what to do in regards to preventing it, I would definitely look them - I would definitely have to look them in the face and tell them that it is real. But if you get it, it’s not the end of the world.

That’s not me telling you that you can just go out and do whatever it is that you want to, you still need to do everything properly. You still need to make sure that you get tested. You still need to make sure that whoever it is that you’re doing something with is tested. Make sure everything is ok between both of you before you interact in that type of way. Make sure that you have safe sex. If you come to the point of not having sex, that’s you know, your business, yourself. But do what you can to make sure that you don’t get it, but if you do get it, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll be ok.

End of transcript.

 

ATN is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number U24HD089880. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

 

More from YEAH Members

Learn more about the ATN-YEAH and see other videos and articles by its members here.