Volunteering with the AIDS Foundation of Chicago

As the other three nursing students and I start our fourth week of internship, we are beginning to get the hang of the routine and the city. Between the four of us, we are doing internships on the pediatric unit, two different medical-surgical units, and the emergency department at University of Illinois-Chicago Medical Center. We have quickly adjusted to the life of getting up at 5 am in order to get ready and catch the 6 o’clock Red Line train. We are getting used to working 8 and 12 hour days multiple times a week. And most importantly we are learning what it is truly like to be a nurse. Another focus that the four of us will have this semester is our service project with The AIDS Foundation of Chicago.

The mission of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) is “to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS and improve the lives of people affected by the epidemic.” AFC has created a wide variety of projects, events, and fundraisers to help them achieve their mission including runs, dance events, and passing out safe-sex kits at a variety of festivals and events around the city. These next few months the Chicago Semester nursing students will be meeting on the last Tuesday of every month to help AFC pack the safe sex packets that they hand out. The last Tuesday in January was our first time attending the “Safe-Sex Kit and Movie Night” event and the four of us were a bit unsure of what to expect. Once we arrived at the offices, we learned that we would be spending the next few hours watching and discussing movies about social issues while packing the safe-sex kits. Shortly after we got there other volunteers continued to join us until we had a group of about 12 people. To start, the coordinator of the event told us a bit about why we were making the kits and how they pass out thousands of these kits every year, especially during the events in the city during the summer months. As we watched and discussed If These Walls Could Talk and If These Walls Could Talk 2, the 12 of us ended up making over 1,000 kits of condoms, lubricant, and a flyer. In addition to helping out AFC, we were able to talk with the other young adults from Chicago that we otherwise would have never met. It was interesting to hear their stories and their passion for service and the HIV/AIDS community.

As future nurses, this semester in Chicago is a great opportunity for us to learn about the health disparities in such a large city and educate ourselves about how we can help better the health of those around us. We have all gotten the opportunity to interact with a wide variety of people and cultures in our internship experiences and have learned how education and prevention plays a major role in the health of an individual. Participating in projects that are outside of a hospital setting is a great way for us to stay involved with community health and decreasing health disparities.