| Maximizing and Expanding Resources
Volunteerism
The Terry K. Watanabe Volunteer Center's cadre of over 7,000 volunteers
— ranging in age from 14 to 93 and hailing from nearly 50 countries
— continues to make possible the work of our mission. Named for
one of GMHC's most prolific supporters, the Watanabe Volunteer Center
formalizes GMHC's legacy of participant-centered volunteer training
that has made GMHC a recognized and highly respected name in volunteer
skills-building and community education. The Watanabe Volunteer
Center's primary goals are to train volunteers for the purpose of
advancing the agency's mission and to share that training with other
community-based organizations locally, nationally, and internationally.
 A
participant-centered volunteer training program mirrors GMHC's harm-reduction
approach to clients — we meet our volunteers where they are.
The Center engages those interested in a dialogue that focuses on
their needs and wants, and then assists them in designing a volunteer
experience that works for them. The Center has an esteemed reputation
for the training and hands-on experience it provides. In addition,
international organizations — like the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) — turn to GMHC for technical assistance, as
well. In May, four delegates from USAID received training in everything
from volunteer management to grassroots organizing. The Center also
increased its global impact by offering internships to HIV and AIDS
organizations from the former Soviet Union, Ireland, Italy, and
Zimbabwe.
The Volunteer Center houses GMHC's expanding Community Education
program, which continues to experience a noteworthy spike in requests
for workshops, seminars, and other speaking engagements. This increase
is as much a result of the New York City Board of Education's mandate
that all public schools provide at least six hours of HIV and AIDS
education, as it is a reflection of a national movement towards
community interaction with service, volunteerism, and education.
More and more educational institutions are requiring community service
from their students. GMHC is often the first place to which these
institutions refer their students, knowing that the GMHC model of
volunteer training and community service is successful and rewarding.
GMHC hosts over 2,000 students from such esteemed colleges and universities
as Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale.
The Addie J. Guttag Partnership Initiative
Though recently formalized, the efforts of the Addie J. Guttag
Partnership Initiative have long been important threads in all of
GMHC's work. The social-service community serves most — and serves
best — when we come together to build on our respective strengths.
In fiscal year 2002, GMHC strengthened existing partnerships while
reaching out to others to create new opportunities to work in coalition.
In addition to the partnering work previously mentioned in this
report being spearheaded by Women and Family Services, Legal Services
and Client Advocacy, and the Watanabe Volunteer Center, GMHC eagerly
collaborated with the New York State AIDS Institute and the Asian
and Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (APICHA) to utilize our
Medicaid license to provide COBRA case management at APICHA. This
innovative partnership permits APICHA to expand capacity as an organization
that directly serves Asians and Pacific Islanders with an unparalleled
linguistic and cultural competence. GMHC is proud to be enhancing
the accessibility to quality case management services at APICHA.
In 2001, GMHC welcomed TEACH — Technology Exchange and Capacity-building
for Community Health — to our home in the Tisch building. As the
lead organization in a federal-, state-, city-, and community-level
coalition, GMHC and TEACH provide capacity-building and technology
to community-based organizations that provide HIV prevention services
to young black and Latino men who have sex with men and women and
men of transgendered experience in New York City. Using a community-level,
population-specific, peer-based harm reduction model, the TEACH
program utilizes both didactic instruction and experiential application
to train indigenous members of vulnerable communities.
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© 2003 Gay Men's Health Crisis
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