GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

DECEMBER 20, 1996

Evenings Out

123

Chris DeChant and co-host Hope Daniels in Aware's Chicago studio.

A former Clevelander makes listeners aware

by Bob Boone

"This silent epidemic has just been going on and on, and no one's been talking about it," proclaimed former Clevelander Chris DeChant while discussing HIV and AIDS in the African-American community, the topic of a special edition of his Aware Talk Radio program.

Since its inception in August of 1992, Aware has not shied away from subjects which other radio broadcasts have tended to overlook or considered unpopular. According to DeChant, "We have a tendency to migrate to issues that no one else wants to talk about."

In its weekly half-hour broadcasts reaching over 300,000 people via 18 radio stations and the Internet, Aware has provided the latest updates on HIV and AIDS treatments, access to health care, alternative medicine, mental health, cancer and other illnesses, and interviews with celebrities and public officials like Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, Olympic diver Greg Louganis, actress and AIDS activist Elizabeth Taylor, and HIV discoverer Dr. Robert Gallo.

Aware has also made certain to include interviews with ordinary people in order to bring the programs' topics closer to

home. In the AIDS and African-Americans: Reasons for Hope special edition, DeChant spoke with Lisa Lynch, an African-American woman whose experience DeChant feels reflects that of a number of women in the community. Lynch learned of her own HIV status when doctors announced that her newborn baby was HIV positive. When she confronted her husband, Lynch was able to trace her

virus from him.

When the producers of Aware were contacting radio stations nationwide with large African-American audiences about airing Reasons for Hope, according to DeChant, some of the stations simply responded, “We just don't discuss that subject.”

In Ohio, two Cleveland FM radio stations, WCPN 90.3 and Aware's weekly affiliate WNVW 107.3, joined the 50 sta-

contraction of the When the producers DeChant excontacted stations with pressed hopes that Lynch's account is large African-American the kind of story audiences about airing that will help break within the AfricanReasons for Hope, some American commusimply responded, “We logue, the lack of just don't discuss that information going subject."

nity the "lack of dia-

out" about HIV and AIDS and will encourage voluntary HIV testing. Although 40 percent of the country's current HIV and AIDS cases have occurred within the African-American community, DeChant observed that the disease is "still a big taboo subject" there.

tions nationwide which aired the special broadcast in the days surrounding World AIDS Day, December 1. (Aware airs on WNWV Sundays at 11:30 pm.)

Co-hosting the special and regularly contributing interviews to the weekly broadcasts has been AfricanAmerican journalist

Hope Daniels. A professor of radio communications for Columbia College Chicago since 1982, except for a two-year leave of absence during which she served as deputy press secretary for US Senator Carol Moseley Braun, Daniels has also

served for more than five years on the board of directors of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.

Diagnosed HIV positive in October, 1991, DeChant the next summer launched Aware to talk about living with HIV and about prevention. The topics of the show have blossomed from there and in the upcoming shows will feature a consumers' guide to "condom sense," a discussion of diversity in the workplace, and a review of the latest HIV and AIDS drugs.

DeChant earned his bachelor of arts degree from John Carroll University in 1982 and his master's degree in marketing and mass communications from Cleveland State University in 1985.

After moving to Chicago in 1987, he worked at Ruder-Finn, Inc., where he developed marketing and public education campaigns for a number of health associations and pharmaceutical companies. DeChant also served for three years as a board member for Chicago's Stop AIDS Project.

As Aware Talk Radio approaches its fifth anniversary, DeChant stated his continued commitment to the program. He remarked simply, "The subjects don't go away, so the topics still need to be discussed."