In 1990, the Alliance for Positive Change (formerly ASCNYC) was founded as a community-based organization working to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to HIV testing, treatment and care. Sharen I. Duke, the Alliance’s only Executive Director, grew a three-person agency into a multi-service, multi-site, multi-lingual, multi-million dollar organization. The Alliance reaches more than 17,000 people through community education, medical care coordination, peer education, HIV testing and direct support services.
Zwickler Memorial Creative Writing Workshop
Poetry was one of Phil’s favorite ways to communicate. While the lines did not rhyme all the time, the message was rarely ambiguous. Our foundation abides by the same principles – what you see is what you get.
Phil was not only a poet, but also a teacher. As a college professor of Shakespeare and a high school English teacher, he loved to teach and took great pride in teaching people to communicate more effectively as a way to improve their lives. Both poetry and education were close to Phil’s heart, and they are therefore close to the heart of this foundation. As such, we are proud to support the Zwickler Memorial Poetry Leadership Program – a program that has enriched the lives of its participants by facilitating education, poetry, and allowing these “poets” the beauty of free expression without boundaries.
“The creative writing/poetry program has been available to Alliance clients for 20 years. For the last several years, we have been a major sponsor of the program. As we have posted over time, the program has been an enormous success. Clients gather every Thursday morning for two hours to analyze and write poetry. I attended the class on August 4th and found myself mesmerized as the class leaders Rosa Velez and Azeem S. Khan gave out a poem with a picture and poem to view and write about. It was magical to watch the roughly 10 participants come to life with their verbal interpretations. Then it was time to write. I was inspired and found it medicinal.
“Poetry was one of Phil’s passions. In his final days he wrote “I love words and love using them. Words are like leaves dropping off a tree, and they are all precious and dear.” We will continue to fund this class which has produced eighteen periodicals which are entitled “Situations.” Please ask the Alliance for their latest book (it’s free) or I can get you one. I assure you that will feel the magic which I have. I have included the poem, picture and Rosa’s interpretation (pictured to the left), which was given out at the session I attended.
Enjoy…”
— Allen Zwickler
ZWICKLER MEMORIAL POETRY LEADERSHIP PROGRAM
Since March 2002, the Alliance for Positive Change (formerly ASCNYC) has received a grant from the Phil Zwickler Charitable and Memorial Foundation Trust to support the launching of a Poetry Leadership Program in conjunction with the Alliance’s ongoing Creative Writing Workshop. With in-kind support from the Alliance, the program has been a great success. The Zwickler Memorial Poetry Leadership Program’s primary goal was to cultivate the group facilitation and leadership skills of advanced participants in Alliance’s Creative Writing Workshop, so that these individuals would become able to lead future groups when the professional facilitator was not available to do so. This process also significantly developed the skills, confidence, and self-esteem of the Poetry Leaders themselves, reinforcing their recovery and advancing their personal development goals.
Allen, Caren and Sandra Lewin (Phil’s mom) along with poetry group leaders Rosa Velez, Harriet McNeill and Azeem Khan
To learn more about Phil’s poetry, please click here.
To learn more about the Alliance poets and the Alliance for Positive Change, please click here.
To learn more about the Alliance’s Creative Writing Workshop: a Gateway to Positive Change, please click here.
Annual Holiday Breakfast
In August of 2022 the POETS were invited back to have an “in-person” poetry reading in the Barnes and Noble Union Square location. At these readings, each member of the workshop can invite their friends and family to see and hear them recite their poetry. With the help of the Zwickler Family Foundation the poems are compiled and printed in magazine style format, called Situations. Since the groups inception Alliance has printed 21 editions of the magazine. The poets come dressed up and sign each other’s copies. The evening stands out. This past August, the group presented Allen and Caren with plaques reading:
“Our deep gratitude for bringing the power of poetry to countless Alliance participants and inspiring us all.”
Over the years – the poets have even shown their gratitude by writing to us.
Tribute to Phil Zwickler by Iris Sankey-Lewis
“Lotus Flower” by Azeem Kahn
Executive Director Speaks about the ASCNYC Creative Writing Workshop
By Sharen I. Duke, Executive Director/CEO
The Alliance for Positive Change Creative Writing Workshop is one of the many innovative programs the Alliance provides for people affected by HIV/AIDS. In this workshop, participants explore a rich array of poems, share their perceptions about these poems, and translate their thoughts and experiences into written form. In many ways, the Creative Writing Workshop is a microcosm of the agency as a whole: a safe space where people affected by HIV/AIDS can achieve serenity in the midst of chaos, challenges, and change.
The Alliance has provided advanced training for workshop participants who exhibit leadership skills. In these trainings, the Alliance’s “Poetry Leaders” have gained skills on planning and facilitating poetry workshops, increased their computer literacy, developed online research skills, and learned about publishing, book design, and editing. For me, reading the poems and watching the growth of the Poetry Leaders and other workshop participants is a humbling experience. Their wit, intelligence, compassion, and determination inspire me to sustain my advocacy for much-needed programs, services and resources. This grant from the Phil Zwickler Memorial Foundation is an example of the very best that public-private partnerships have to offer—bringing hope, changing lives, and expanding our sense of what is possible. Thank you, Zwickler family!
Sharen I. Duke has been the Executive Director of the Alliance for Positive Change since its inception. Her work in program planning and evaluation, fundraising, budget management, policy development, training, and service delivery reflect her deep commitment to individuals and families living with and affected by HIV and AIDS. She has represented the needs of people living with and at risk for HIV/AIDS at the city, state and federal levels. Recently, Sharen Duke was interviewed on NY1 about the Alliance and the challenges it faces.
PREP (Peer Recovery Education Program)
One of the Alliance’s finest programs is their Peer Education program. Peer Educators are living proof that each one of us has the power to transform our community, by translating the values of survival, hope, respect, dignity, and social responsibility into our day-to-day actions.
The Alliance trains men and women affected by HIV/AIDS, and in recovery from drug or alcohol use, to become community leaders in the fight against AIDS. Armed with knowledge and skills, Alliance Peer Educators go into high-risk communities to provide outreach and prevention education, building trust and forging connections to medical, drug treatment and social service programs.
The greatest impact of the Alliance’s Peer Program is on the Peers themselves—Peers develop teaching and leadership skills that directly support their ability and motivation to maintain healthy behavioral changes over time, and to role model those healthy behaviors to the people they reach through community education. Over 25% of the Alliance staff are former Peer graduates who have left welfare and rejoined the workforce.
To read more about Alliance’s outstanding program PREP, please click here.
