By Evelyn Bailey
In September the new Executive Director of MOCHA, Bruce E. Smail, was officially welcomed by the Rochester community. The list of MOCHA’s Executive Directors benchmark the organization’s achievements in fighting HIV/AIDS in communities of color in the Rochester and Buffalo areas. Every organization has a beginning. For MOCHA that beginning took place 15 years ago.
In 1996 Gary English, a young gay Black man who was an Americorp worker at the Rochester Center for Independent Living (RCIL), expressed concern and dismay over the lack of attention to and services for gay African American men in the community. He felt that this demographic had needs, issues and unique concerns that were specific to their life experiences as men of color living with HIV/AIDS.
These concerns included racism, homophobia, and sexism. The anti-gay influence of the church and an unstable family life also often accompanied those clients. It was generally felt that people who had similar experiences could best relate to and understand the layers of oppression and other marginalizing life events.
Gary also stressed the importance of people being able to go to service providers (regardless of the service) where they saw others like themselves, in a warm and supportive environment. This is particularly an issue because of white society’s ongoing general fear and misunderstanding about HIV and AIDS and people of color.
Similar services had been provided to men of color for many years downstate in the New York City and Long Island area. After many months of highly detailed research and sweat equity, a grant proposal followed. Several months later, the MOCHA Project became a reality.
The Men Of Color Health Awareness Project actually began Dec. 1, 1996 as a five year project funded by the N.Y.S. Health Department AIDS Institute. The goal was to reduce new infections particularly among men of color who identify either as gay or as MSM (men who have sex with men). In 1996, The Rochester Center for Independent Living allowed Gary to use the center’s resources as an incubator to develop the program. The program started out providing services and activities around HIV/AIDS outreach and education.
In 1997 in the African American community, men who have sex with men (MSM) accounted for 41 percent of new infections as compared with 37 percent among injecting drug users. The Men Of Color Health Awareness Program aimed to change these frightening statistics. The MOCHA Project consisted of a program coordinator, Gary English, and the four peer educators who worked with him: Arlisha Massey, Edwin Watson, Eric Jeneson, and Edward Downing and an administrative assistant, Elizabeth Ramsey.
In a 1997 interview with Susan Jordan, the Empty Closet editor, Gary said, “The first couple of years you are just getting off the ground. We have to establish our presence in the minority community. Within the five years we hope to sustain ourselves, and make this project a permanent institution in the community.”
Arlisha Massey said, “It’s an ongoing process. You have to be innovative. In reaching our target population we’ve had extensive training that will help us quite a bit.”
“We feel the meat of the program is intervention,” Gary English said. “We believe that you can’t just give men condoms and expect them to use them all the time. Men need support around coming out and feeling good about that, and around self esteem. The intervention group is where behaviors change and are sustained.”
The program has grown over the years and now the MOCHA Center includes case management, support groups and other direct services. (See the interview with new ED Bruce Smail.)
The mission of MOCHA has always been to strengthen communities of color and their families as they define them. This could be accomplished by providing supportive environments that clients could relate to. Early on, the pioneers of the MOCHA Project recognized that these social environments impact healthy behaviors. Therefore, it was MOCHA’s goal to seek and to promote health and wellness through advocacy, education, prevention, and community development specializing in LGBTQ programming.
In 1998, after setting a positive course for MOCHA, Gary English returned to New York City, or to Brooklyn, to be more precise.
Excerpts from an article, AIDS CRISIS MANAGEMENT: He fights for black gay men, in August 5, 2005 edition of the Daily News; NY Local: AIDS ONCE RAN Gary English out of New York City.