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February 26, 2015

Clínica Esperanza’s 25th Anniversary Celebration honors a Community Legacy

On December 12th, 2014, MNHC hosted a party at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in honor of the 25th anniversary of Clínica Esperanza. As guests arrived, they were greeted by a slide show celebrating the many devoted staff over the years and an art gallery of masks.

The art gallery displayed masks and paintings created by patients, family members, partner organizations, and staff in a weekly workshop. Participants make a cast of their face and then decorate it to reflect their emotions and the impact of HIV in their lives and community. The workshop is held yearly to celebrate AIDS world day; this year it was held in conjunction with the celebration of the clinic’s anniversary.

Each well-crafted mask contains a note written by its creator speaking to their pain, sorrow, triumph, and/or joy. The note of a yellow mask covered in pills caught the attention of many guests. “In his fight to survive living with HIV, this common human, became super undetectable,” it read. “Combatting day by day with his HIV medication until it left him idle”

Clínica Esperanza celebrates with pride its many years of compassionate and holistic service and success in helping patients manage HIV and in creating a community of support. A nascent idea in 1970, today the clinic serves about 400 patients, mostly Latino men, many of whom are monolingual in Spanish. All services are available in Spanish and English. Services include primary medical care, case management, behavioral health, HIV testing, HIV prevention, nutrition services, support services, and activities such as the mask making workshop and stress reduction knitting group are also offered.

In addition to garnering national recognition for its many innovative programs that have sustained its growth, Clinica Esperanza continues to focus on the community it serves. Perhaps its’ best noted in a portrait created by a patient to honor Ana Leon, assistant clinic manager that hangs on the wall of the clinic. “We are truly humbled by the gratitude our patients have for the care we provide,” she said. “We have a close relationship with patients; it’s like a second home.”

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