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Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica

How it had me
all I wanted was to do

was crawl in a ball
and dead like that

but see me here now,
see me here now,

man must live, iyah,
man must live.

-Kwame Dawes

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), a feature in the Washington Post's Outlook section, 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 (performed at the National Black Theatre Festival in August 09), 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 interactive site LiveHopeLove.com

Awards and recognition:

LiveHopeLove.com is the winner of a Webby People's Voice award in the Art category, and is the winner of a News and Documentary Emmy for new approaches to news and documentary programming. It was rated "Outstanding" in HOW Magazine's International Design Annual Issue and received an honorable mention from the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism.

Acknowledgements:

This reporting project was made possible through the support of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in association with The Virginia Quarterly Review, Azimuth Media and bluecadet interactive. The Center funded Kwame Dawes’ travel costs and also commissioned the video documentary, photography and interactive web narrative that complement the reporting project.

Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica is one of three Caribbean reporting initiatives undertaken by the Pulitzer Center with support from the MAC AIDS Fund.

Related Pulitzer Center Reporting:

Heroes of HIV: HIV in the Caribbean

Glass Closet: Sex, Stigma and HIV/AIDS in Jamaica

Kwame Dawes

Ghanaian-Jamaican writer and poet Kwame Dawes is the author of over a dozen collections of verse, including the critically-acclaimed “Wisteria: Poems From the Swamp Country.” Dawes is also the author of numerous plays, essays and books.

Click on name above for full bio

Hope: Jamaica Multimedia
Production Team

Poetry/Special Correspondent:
Kwame Dawes
Executive Producer
Jon Sawyer
Co-Producers/Videographers:
Nathalie Applewhite and Steve Sapienza
Videographer: Doug Gritzmacher
Photographer: Josh Cogan
Interactive Website: bluecadet

Click on Hope: Jamaica Multimedia Production Team for full credits