B.8. The Urgent Help Fund (FAR)

A necessity at least become operational!

HISTORY

The project of a FAR (« Fond d’Aide Rapide » was imagined by the end of 1996 and its precise definition has been given in January 1997. Its purpose is to help HIV positive people who are in a difficult social and financial position due to their illness.

The allowance for each case would be between 1 000 FF to 5 000 FF and could eventually in certain cases be made in the form of an interest free loan (which could alleviate the waiting period between the attribution of a social allowance and its actual payment.

The FAR Statutes have been completed in autumn 1997 and includes a clause based upon the citizenship principe wich implies that we should help each other « it would be desirable that when an appreciable improvement of the social situation occurs that the recipients of the fund could reimburse all or part of the allowance received, so that the fund recuperated could be used to help as much people in need as possible ». Furthermore, the recipients are asked to inform us about their social evolution.

The infection by the virus has lead a number of people to social precarity mainly because they’ve lost their jobs. But the hope of a chronical remission is move a more likely to happen thanks to the results obtained by tritherapies and other therapies. It is therefore more and more important to fight against social exclusion. Indeed social exclusion represents an important stress that can influence HIV positive peoples’ health.

RESULTS

From the first quarter of 1997 up to November 1997, ten requests for subsidies to feed the fund have been carried out for of which in direction of foreign organisations :

• – two have given their agreement in December 97 : the Mercury Phoenix Trust and « Des Voix contre le Sida « *.
• – one organisation replied that it could not engage it self in a new project : Fondation France Liberté.
• – four other replied that they could not retain our project : DASS de Paris**, Ensemble contre le Sida, Fondation de France, Fondation Caisse d’Epargne.
• – three last we have contacted one year ago*** haven’t replied yet : Elton John’s founding, Levi Strauss founding, Terrence Higgins Trust.

We have already been able to help 42 people living in France (20 live in Paris, 11 in the suburbs and 11 everywhere in France) and 12 people living in Ivory Coast. Among people living in France, 7 are notive of Africa (Ivory Coast, Gambia, Mali, Zaïre and Zambia). This is of course an humble start in our fight against social exclusion especially when one knows the difficulties encountered by the people in need when they try to obtain financial assistance from associations with consequent financial means (wealthy organisations).

Each person we have helped so far received an amount situated between 1 000 to 3 000 FF. The amount received varies according the situation. We have limited for the present the allowance to a maximum of 3 000 FF so that we can help the greatest number of people as possible, whilst still keeping a reserve for the extremely urgent cases. In April, we had to limit the allowance to the som of 2 000 FF. Indeed, we just have received in May 1998 the second subsidy we have obtained and have already used the major part of the first subvention.

The requests for benefit from the FAR were mostly motivated by the following reasons : housing, debts, taxes, difficults end of month, to alienate the delay in payment of social benefits, travelling expenses, holiday subsidies, job creation in Africa, health expenses, maternity financial assistance, dental/optical care.

PERSPECTIVES AND REFLEXIONS

In obtaining new subsidies and the renewal of present subsidies we hope, in the near future, to be able to lift the limit of the allowance to 5 000 FF as we initially planned. Amongst the 20 cases we are presenting many concerned tragic situations which would have necessitated a larger financial support. And we hope to be able in the future to help a greatest number of people.

Since the POSITIFS association has been created, POSITIFS has instructed many demands for benefit (mainly for the FAR). It’s a long and complicated job and the result is quite disappointing. This can be explained for the major part by the retractance of subventioning organisations due to the disappropriation of funds by certain associations but also to the attribution of excessive amounts to certain associations which benefit of a too long mediatization.

As for the POSITIFS association we would like to remind you that the functionning cost of the FAR can’t go beyond 10% of the allocated sums. As far as we’ll find it possible the FAR’s will function thanks to volontary work. But due to its developpement we probably will have to create a part time job in the future.

We plan as well to help foreign people in the form of allowances from the FAR. Helping foreigners seems to us to be logical and necessary. However, in a great number of countries, especially in the Third World, AIDS is not the only cause of social/financial precarity. The subventions we have obtained so far to feed the FAR will only enable us to help a limited number of people of this countries. It is hoped in the future that we’ll also be able to help people who are in a difficult social and financial position due to any serious illness not only due to AIDS. And it will only be possible if we convince a great number of subventioning organisations by also all the Web Surfers of the planet.

WE ARE CALLING ON ALL WEB SURFERS : IF YOU CAN, DON’T HESITATE TO SEND US YOUR PARTICIPATION TO THE FUND.

Cheques to be made out to POSITIFS association : BP 230, 75865 PARIS cedex 18, France

or

Bank transfer : (ask us for references)

HAVING HAD NEAR TO 300 000 CONNEXIONS ON OUR INTERNET WEB SITE, THIS CALL FOR FUNDS ON THE WEB WILL ENABLE US TO MEASURE THE IMPACT OF THIS NEW TECHNOLOGY ON THE GENEROSITY OF THE INTERNET COMMUNITY AND ALLEVIATE THE LACK OF HELP FROM THE DIFFERENT GOVERNING BODIES ROUND THE WORLD. CAN THE WEB BE THE CORNER STONE OF BUILDING NEW CONFIDENCE IN THE HUMAN RACE?
WE THINK IT’S NOT A DREAM!

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* « Les Voix contre le Sida » are concerts organized since two years by the three gay and lesbian Parisian Choirs : « LES CARAMELS FOUS », « EQUIVOX » and « MELO’MEN » which benefits have been allowed to some associations against AIDS and for helping the ill to finance their project. In the autumn 1997, the organization comittee of this concert proposed to help one or two projects financially. And it’s the POSITIFS Association’s FAR project that attribution was been chosen. In 1998, several requests for subsidies have been carried out. We still haven’t been given a single positive answer.

** Here it what the Doctor M-F CHEDRU, chief doctor in the Insertion and Social Development Departement of the Direction of Sanitary and Social Affairs in Paris (DASS), has replied to our request for subvention to feed the FAR, on March the 20th 1997 (MFC/CG 97 n° 511):
Without ignoring the financial problems encountered by HIV positive people, it seems to me undesirable to set up a system which would be specific to a particular pathology. A better collaboration between the associations against AIDS and social services is likely to lessen those difficulties.
We don’t know what to think of this response as it is usually stated that associations against AIDS as well as the social services are unable to help a great number of HIV positive people faced with social and financial precarity ! This is confirmed by HIV positive people that we deal with but also by social workers and members of associations fighting AIDS (recently, a member of the association AIDES asked us for financial support for itself !).

*** Some people seem to ignore the EMERGENCY or what the words « daily emergency » mean.

See the results here.