25 faces: Leaders fighting HIV/AIDS in Colorado

13 Brother Jeff Fard

At age 16, Brother Jeff Fard witnessed a crisis that forever changed his life. One of his first jobs was as an orderly at Mercy Hospital in Denver.

“If there was a defining moment, it was seeing primarily men come into Mercy Hospital and just dying immediately,” Fard said. They were dying of AIDS, at a time when it was still misunderstood what the disease impacting them was.

Decades later there had been a lot of progress understanding and managing the virus that causes AIDS, but it seemed a crisis was emerging once again: “We got involved because we were looking at the disproportional impact HIV/AIDS was having in the African-American community, and the high death rates.” Fard is now 47 and known as Brother Jeff – in 2000 he founded Brother Jeff’s Community Health Initiative to serve the African-American community surrounding HIV infection.

The initiative provides testing, education and outreach, advocates for patients in making sure they receive care, and pushes for culturally-specific education efforts.

“In some ways there was a disbelief – people thinking HIV was primarily a gay white male disease,” Fard said. “People may discriminate, but HIV does not.”

Another shocking moment was when Fard learned about ‘gifting,’ he said; “people seeking HIV because they think it will make them feel like they’re accepted in an inner group and have access to services they’re currently not getting – like healthcare.”

Through his initiative, Fard is letting people know that HIV hasn’t gone away – though it seems the perception is changing in what Fard called “HIV fatigue.”

“Patients are tiring of the regimens of medications they need to take, and we’re seeing a decline in talking about the issue. It seems like it has gone under the radar,” he said. Agencies are closing, and personnel is constantly changing – since he started it’s turned over “almost 100 percent at all levels; agencies, providers, hospitals,” Fard said. There’s a constant need for new relationships, re-training and re-education.

Still, Fard said, he wants people to know that those who care are out there.

“A lot of people are extending hands,” Fard said. “This is a state that confronts difficult issues and comes together.”