by Susan McMillan

     How is eating Haagen Dazs like practicing unsafe sex? It's all about temptation, according to Susan Davis, of Hilltop Light Ministries (HLM), the faith-based organization delivering an AIDS prevention message to youth. This group is out there, promoting HIV testing and distributing condoms to minority kids on the streets of Burlington.       Why isn't the staff preaching abstinence like many other religious groups? I put this question to Davis, HLM's Health Initiative for Vermont (HIV) Project Director. The answer is in the Haagen Dazs. Davis explains it like this: When you are a bit depressed, do you ever console yourself by reaching for that pint of ice cream in the freezer? Likewise, when a teenager gets down and depressed, he may reach for someone to be close to. He knows, just like you know, it is not a healthy choice.
     Prevention is all about resisting temptation, and it is never easy. As Davis reminds us, we are all aware of the significant benefits of a healthy diet, but we do not always act accordingly - sometimes, we choose the ice cream. Knowing this truth about human behavior, Davis finds it unrealistic to preach abstinence to sexually active teenagers.
     Granted, the analogy is an oversimplification. However, in the midst of Burlington's youth subculture, this federally funded, church-affiliated program is spreading the 'good word,' and it is a message that kids may actually hear. Although associated with Hilltop Light Assemblies of God Church through their common founder, the Reverend Patricia C. Davis (Susan Davis' mother), the folks at HLM are interested in saving kids' lives before worrying about their souls.
     Susan Davis began her life-saving ministry at age 13 in Malawi, a country she describes as "the warm heart of Africa - the people there are just so sweet and caring. It was amazing to be there among people who material-wise and health-wise had so much less than [we] do." It was a real challenge, she says, to Western ideas of prosperity.
     At first, she says, "People were starving and they were sick, and we didn't know if they were sick because they had no food or starving because of the war in the next country. So we started food farms to help feed people." It grew into an AIDS relief effort as the illness was identified.
     Davis, a soft-spoken woman with warm eyes behind her glasses, smiles often as she speaks. "Then," she adds, "some people said that people were doing the same things and needed the same things in our own place." So, she came home to minister to the health of youth of color here.
     Asked how many youth Hilltop Light has had contact with over the past year, Davis says "about 1200." She agrees that there has been a major increase in the population of youth of color in Vermont, particularly Burlington. Many are multi-racial, she adds, and they don't fit in the boxes on government forms.
     Most of the outreach, 80 percent, is done by peer counselors, youth of color (age 19 or younger) talking to youth of color. Because they might be familiar faces from school, or have a history of high-risk behavior themselves, their information is treated as credible by the youth they talk to. There is no hint of the relentless abstinence message hammered into our youth by conservatives. Certainly, abstaining from sex is the best choice, but is it realistic? When confronted by criticism from conservatives about the project's endorsement of condoms, Davis' response rings clear: "People are dying. If you care about them, you do something."
     Behavior is the issue, Davis says, not moral judgment. The goal is prevention, and it starts with risk reduction. It starts wherever the youth are. Hilltop's message is straightforward. Get tested. If you are going to have sex, have safe sex. Or, better yet, try 'postponement.' According to Davis, postponement might mean waiting until you learn your partner's last name, or his/her HIV status, or until you are sober. Any postponement, they say, is a step in the right direction. HLM outreach workers openly discuss STDs, condoms, dental dams, and HIV testing.
     Outreach workers leave the confines of the office and go to the kids, usually in downtown Burlington hangouts. A worker does a risk assessment, knowing that their questions about sexual partners and drug use may not be answered honestly. Kids worry that any tracking of their information might end up with the cops, especially if they're being asked about drug use or older sexual partners. However, even if they answer by minimizing or denying using drugs or the number and age of their sexual partners, even thinking about the questions may prompt potential clients to realize that their behavior is dangerous.
     When the risk assessment suggests it, the outreach peer suggests HIV testing - sometimes right next door at the Imani Health Project or right then by being accompanied to the Community Health Center with free bus tokens, followed by vouchers for movies or pizza. "And if any of the youth's friends ask why they're getting tested, they can say, 'Hey, I'm getting free pizza, why not?' Or 'I'm getting a free movie.' It gives them a good excuse to their friends."
     When Davis pauses in our conversation in the corner of the big one-room office, searching for an answer to how many of the youth the project has taken to be tested have returned to get the results, one of Davis's co-workers pulls up the answer: 24 out of 24 since June. Some follow-up appointments have been rescheduled, but the youths involved called and asked to be rescheduled.
     There are unique obstacles in reaching LGBT youth from a faith-based program. The Ministries' HIV program is considering establishing an Internet chat room. The group has had conversations with both Outright Vermont and R.U.1.2? and the groups cross-refer whenever it is appropriate.
     Davis says that Hilltop Light Ministries is the only organization in Vermont funded directly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has fully financed the program for four years. HLM does not receive any state AIDS funding, and therefore, its staff does not participate in the networking through the state's HIV/AIDS grantee meetings.
     Just as we continue to reach for the Haagen Dazs, the work at HLM will continue to be relevant, for, as Oscar Wilde said, "I couldn't help it. I can resist everything except temptation." And Susan Davis and her staff will keep reaching out to an under-served population to help save their lives.

Hilltop Light Ministries' office is located at 294 North Winooski Ave., on the second floor of the former Gaslight Laundromat; call 802-865-3822.