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Mayor George Lee
Portmore Municipal Council
Shop 82
Portmore Pines Plaza
Portmore

November 10, 2007

Panos [12132007]

Dear Mayor Lee,

I am a 12 years old girl whose mother has been living with HIV for more than five years now. When I first heard that she had HIV, I cried because I thought that she was going to die. When she was sick and in bed, it made me cry and I was very scared.

As a resident of Portmore, I don’t think enough is being done by local government to educate people about HIV. I would really like to see more programmes happening in Portmore through your office. There are lots of people in Portmore who need to know more about HIV.

Mayor Lee, I’m very scared for all the adults and children who are living with the virus in this area. There is a lot of discrimination in the different communities. I know of two kids who were forced to leave the community they lived in just because one of them was positive and their parents died as a result of AIDS. The community people threatened to kill them if they stayed. When I see these things happening, it makes me want to cry because I know this could happen to my mother and me if people knew.

I would really like if you could do more advertisements in Portmore to show people that they would not like it if they were HIV positive and people treated them badly. As the mayor, you really need to show people in Portmore that it is not nice to discriminate against people living with HIV. I look forward to you doing much more to educate people about the virus.

Yours Sincerely,

Patricia Watson
Regional Director, Panos [12132007]