A First Perspective

Hi readers,

I would like to personally welcome you to our blog for the Boulder County Aids Project (BCAP). My name is Zach Kincaid and I am one of the bloggers dedicated to giving my perspective on AIDS and BCAPS fight to spread awareness. I would like to first give you all a background of myself and where I come from.  I am a business student at the University of Colorado-Boulder and a major in marketing. My upbringing has been based upon strong family values and on strong Christian views. I am a white, heterosexual male, and a devout Lutheran. This blog is a brand new experience to me in regard to not having much knowledge on the topic of AIDS and also having no exposure to anyone infected with HIV/AIDS.

            When I hear the expression HIV/AIDS I immediately think of all the people over in Africa that are dying every day from the lack of knowledge and awareness, but the fact that it exists in our American society is something that doesn’t even come to mind. Maybe it’s the “bubble” or suburb that I grew up in or the vast lack of awareness in our society, but I don’t even think about HIV/AIDS affecting those around me. Believe me, I am not trying to be stubborn, I am just being honest in the fact that I know close to nothing. This is an idea that I feel many people my age and in the college environment share. Until meeting with the people at BCAP I was unaware about the prevalence in society around us and the lack of knowledge that I have, and feel college kids and young adults as a whole have on HIV/AIDS. In our initial meeting with Dan from BCAP, I learned more than I had ever known before about the prevalence of AIDS in Colorado and the devastating effects it has on people. One thing that really stuck out to me in the meeting were all the underlying effects that AIDS has on a person, but also what BCAP does to help with these. I had previously been oblivious to the fact that AIDS causes so many problems in financial, housing, and even basic necessity aspects of a person’s life. I quickly learned that AIDS can have so many lesser known effects than just the virus and health aspect itself. This was a scary thought, but I was also introduced to the department heads that handle these fields for clients and reassured that people with AIDS would get the help they needed from the BCAP staff.  I hope that working with the wonderful folks at BCAP and learning more about their mission and organization that I can become better educated and hope to spread awareness to my peers in order to hopefully one day rid Boulder and all society of HIV/AIDS.