Thursday, December 6, 2018

Ossining Library’s Budarz Theater: 53 Croton Ave, Ossining, NY 10562

View the trailer: How to Survive A Plague 

View the panel discussion for How to Survive a Plague

Panelist Bios:

John Rodriguez
PrEP Navigator, Open Door Family Medical Centers

At Ossining’s branch of Open Door Family Medical Centers, John is a PrEP Navigator who has been working in the prevention field for the past two years. He is passionate about his work that entails educating and linking patients to the proper care in the prevention of HIV via their Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) program.

A graduate from Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, John was raised, works and resides in Westchester County.

 

Jay W. Walker
Organizer, Gays Against Guns

Jay W. Walker has been actively involved in activism surrounding LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS issues for over 20 years. A volunteer for AIDS Walk New York for 21 years, Jay also managed Special Events at Gay Men’s Health Crisis for from 2001 – 2007. In the late 90s, in the wake of the murder of Matthew Shepard, he helped form the October 19th Coalition which used direct action activism to raise awareness of hate crimes targeting LGBTQ communities. He also volunteered with GMHC’s NY Citizens AIDS Network legislative public policy initiative at that time.

More recently, Jay has been a founding member of Gays Against Guns, formed after the Pulse massacre in Orlando, FL and has served on its Steering Committee since the beginning. He also helped form the Resistance direct action group Rise and Resist after the 2016 election and currently serves on its Board. In addition, he served on the Steering Committee for another Resistance group, Refuse Fascism.org, for most of 2017. For fun and release, he sings Resistance songs with the Resistance “queertet,” Sing Out Louise (neé GAG Reflex/GAG Nog).

A native of Virginia, Jay moved to NYC in 1985 to pursue his education at NYU and remained here, as living in NYC had been his childhood dream. His commitment to social justice was borne from the lessons learned from his late mother, Cherryvera Walker, who had been active in the Civil Rights Movement and brought Jay up with first-hand stories of her work within it.

As a gay, Black, 20 year HIV/AIDS survivor, Jay recognizes the crucial role that intersectionality plays in effective activism and resistance to the current political regime in Washington, DC. Much of his work within the organizations he belongs to has been in trying to develop synergies among them to work in concert.

Professionally, Jay is the Director of Development at The Ironbound Community Corporation in Newark, NJ.

 

Tyler H Walk

Editor “How to Survive a Plague”

Tyler H. Walk is a Cinema Eye award-winning and Emmy-nominated editor whose projects include David France’s Oscar-nominated How To Survive a Plague and Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next. Tyler is also an amateur pinballer and pretend rock star by night. His Bacon number is 2.