Our April 2019 Shero of the Month is Kamaria Laffrey of Winter Haven, Florida. Kelly Flannery, PWN If/When/How Legal Fellow who nominated Kamaria said, “Kamaria is an inspiration. She has claimed her seat at the policy table — a model for all future PWN-USA policy fellows. She is a powerful advocate, doing groundbreaking work in Florida to push to modernize their HIV criminalization laws. I also know I can always rely on Kamaria. She has been fiercely supportive of the PWN-USA Policy Fellowship and always makes herself available to help grow and support the next generation of PWN-USA policy leaders.”
When asked why she chose to become an advocate for people living with HIV, Kamaria said, “Active and intentional advocacy came about because I was tired of hearing about stigma after my diagnosis, especially in the Black community, but it seemed no one wanted to step up in my local community to empower and engage in spaces that were meaningful.” Before Kamaria knew what Meaningful Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS (MIPA) was, she was sitting at tables, challenging systems and elevating concerns of gaps in services because she wanted to understand why the status quo was to just blame stigma instead of trying to eliminate it.
She ambitiously set out to become “the face to erase stigma” by talking about HIV in spaces that weren’t discussing it but should have been. Kamaria expressed her concern with the quote “knowledge is power because “you can have knowledge of something all the live-long day, but if you aren’t doing anything with what you know to increase, inspire or influence the health and well-being of others, your knowledge is pointless. When thinking about the HIV epidemic she says, “Knowledge may be the power, but it’s the application of what you know that can save your life.”
Kamaria is a working mother as well as an advocate. In the beginning, she had to prioritize motherhood. She will most likely go deeper into that conversation as she is featured in the upcoming virtual coffee table discussion, PWNCares: Motherhood with HIV. When asked how she managed motherhood and living with HIV, she said, “It was when I realized that women were living with HIV for years in the same household as their children and not talking about it, that advocacy became the perspective shift. My household looks different. There are no secrets, there is support.” She accredits her determination to not allow stigma to cloak and suffocate women living with HIV that morphed into a career. She practices self care “it is a part of my continued healing from the trauma of stigma. I have learned to not ask for permission for it and to not make excuses when my version of self-care doesn’t match what others thinks it should look like.”
Kamaria’s career is in the decriminalization of HIV at The SERO Project. She started out in her advocacy “only caring about prevention and talking to teens.” Today, she advocates for reproductive justice in women living with HIV, access to quality resources and the gaps in the HIV Care Continuum She says her advocacy “comes back to my personal experience because I use that as my marker to understand how to help others.”