PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) today mourned the death earlier this week of Haiti’s Charlot Jeudy, an AHF ally and the President of KOURAJ, an LGBTQ organization in Haiti. According to CBC Radio, he was 46 years old when he was found dead in his home Monday, and although his cause of death was not immediately known, CBC Radio reported that before he died, his “… friends and colleagues tried to convince him to flee Haiti for his own safety, but the LGBTQ rights activist refused to go…”
“Through his work, his loyal commitment to this struggle of breaking barriers for those who have been marginalized, abandoned and turned away from, Charlot Jeudy’s memory will always be engraved in this great community,” said Karine Duverger, AHF’s Country Program Manager in Haiti. “He endured all the burden of discrimination and stigmatization against this segment of society, yet he never failed to speak out for the rights of these individuals. His death shall not be in vain. It will serve as a catalyst in the fight for the inclusion and respect of all LGBTQ people, primarily in Haiti, but also throughout the world.”
According to CBC Radio, KOURAJ “… partnered last year with the United Nations to launch a project in Haiti to reduce discrimination and homophobia and promote tolerance and equal rights following incidents of anti-LGBTQ street violence.”
In Haiti, AHF currently operates four free HIV/AIDS treatment clinics, partners with the Ministry of Health in 13 hospitals as well as maintains a partnership with Health through Walls in 14 prisons throughout the country, with over 19,000 patients countrywide receiving lifesaving antiretroviral treatment.
Over the years Charlot Jeudy has been a staunch ally of AHF and the HIV prevention and AIDS treatment work that it does in Haiti. He participated in AHF’s first gay pride celebration in the country and AHF marks his death as a sad and significant loss, saluting this fallen comrade in the fight for social justice and equality for LGBTQ populations in Haiti and elsewhere across the world.
About AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 1.3 million people in 43 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare.
