Project Kengikat

First Steps

// June 26th, 2010 // HIV and AIDS, Homeless Outreach, Me Time, Uncategorized

One of the things that I really wanted to do with my outreaches was to make a lasting impression and create some real change. Not change that takes years or decades, but change that one can see fairly quick. It’s been a long hard road, but I am happy to report that CHANGE for the better has taken place and the term “it’s a process” has become nothing more then a huge lie that I think organizations like to use as of way of not doing the jobs they are funded and paid to do.

When I created Do Something Saturday I did so against the advice of people who thought they knew more then me. They figured since I was homeless and in need, that I was far too stupid to create anything that could actually help someone. Seeing that I was homeless they just naturally thought that this meant I was a bad person and had lived my life making bad choices which ended in me being homeless. Well they were wrong on all accounts. The sad thing is that these were the people I was forced to turn to for help. Homelessness lasted as long as it did, because I refused the kind of help they were offering, I refused to allow someone who could not add 2+2 be to be charge of me. I also refused to let this same sort of thinking prevent me from doing what I knew I could do. Here I am over three years later and Do Something Saturday is still going strong.

The very same thing can be said for me wanting to be part of the collective change for HIV and AIDS. The first thing that people said was, “you are homeless and have HIV. How can you help anyone.” One person from Skid Row Housing Corporation even went as far as to say “who do you think you are?” Again, I refused to be told no and I refused to allow people to push me aside for the simple fact that they were seated in places where people like me are looked down upon and not welcomed.

“Who do you think you are?” It’s not who I think I am, It’s who I know I am…..the child of a king and through him I can do all things.

People always seem  to be caught up in titles, fancy name tags, positions, big offices that look down on the little people and all this type of business, but the bottom line is this. People re quick to remind someone of the bad choice, or something they may have done wrong in their life. Quick to remind someone “I know what you did last week” when they are in the drivers seat. They act as if they have never made a bad choice, never needed someone to simply understand and not judge, never done one thing that someone can point a finger at. It’s sad to me how we ignore dogs that piss and shit in the house, but treat humans like wild beasts when they have fallen short.

I recall a so called social worker, excuse me a “unit supervisor” at the Grand Office of DPSS who told me “you really need to give up this crusade to help people. It will get you no where” I looked at her and replied “Is that what Jenny Craig told you when you at a weeks worth of food in less then a day. Is that what Weight Watchers told you after you broke the truck scale they had to bring in to weigh your fat ass?” I went on to tell her that she does not get to decide and has no say in how things will turn out for me. She did her best to get me thrown out of the office, but I refused and later spoke to her boss where he forced her to apologize.

I said this to say this, there is only one person who can hold us back and that is ourselves. There is only one person who can get in the way of our dreams, our goals, our hopes, our destiny and that is us. The life that we’ve be given to life is ours and no one but us controls it. The outcome is up to us. So the next time someone tells you what you can’t do, what you can’t achieve, you look them in the eyes and tell them to “KICKS ROCKS” and you keep it movin’. Don’t ever let anyone determine what the outcome for your life will be, because it is not up to them and they have no say.

Throughout my life everything that I have set out to do I have done. Yes there were hardships, setbacks, sidetracks and all else, but it got done, because I stayed the course and never lost sight of who I am, whose I am and what I am able to create. This is going to miss some of my readers, but I will say it anyway. Greater is he who is in me, then he who is in the world. I don’t need no title, no position, no fancy office, no fancy friends or a fancy car to accomplish something that is great. I don’t need the approval or a head nob from anyone to make things CHANGE for the better for humanity. I just need to take the first steps, have faith and stay the course.

I didn’t create Project KengiKat to get my face on some magazine, nor do I want my name called in fancy offices, I don’t do what I do for praise or recognition. I never wanted it to be some large organization with fancy offices for fancy people who only look down on others. I did not create what I do to make friends or have people like me, shit I knew once I mentioned the fact that I was homeless or that I have HIV people who walk away, have their sick thoughts and opinions, so getting them to help those who are homeless or battling HIV or AIDS was not going to win me anything.

Project KengiKat is about doing all you can for others, not thinking about yourself and going above and beyond the extra mile for someone in need. It means caring without limits or expectations. It’s means getting up, suiting up and showing up when you are sick, when you don’t feel like it, when it is raining outside, when it is hot outside, when you have no money, when you have nothing to give but yourself. It’s about loving and embracing people and tearing down the segregated walls of “community”

I am so glad that I took the first steps back in 2007 even when people told me I was stupid, because looking back I see what I have been able to accomplish, I see the real friendships that have been formed with the amazing people I have in my life. As I look back I see what is possible if you simply keep doing your best to move forward in love, even in the face of great adversity. I’ve seen the people who look beyond my faults, beyond all my fuck ups, beyond my bad choices, beyond my scars, my tears, my hurt, my shame, my pain, my past and all they see is the best in me.

When I look around I see people who love me for who I am, not for what they want me to be and when I look around I see the very same people embracing what I have created and working just as hard and many times much harder then me to keep my first steps alive and for this I am so humbled and thankful.

Last week the residents on Skid Row voted to keep me on as their outreach organization even though there are some who would rather it not be in place there. But it is not up to them. I care deeply for many of the residents on Skid Row. Many of them have touched my life in ways they will never know. When I thought of not being able to continue my work there, my heart got a bit heavy, but then I prayed and asked God to work things out and if that meant I would need to move forward then I would accept that. I asked him for his will and not my own.

Also last week I took the first steps in two huge projects I am going to be working very hard on until they are complete. They are much bigger then anything I have created so far, but I am working with some really talented people and I also have my friends who I know will help me as much as they can as well as encourage me all the way. I will say that both projects are things that are very close to my heart and mean so much to me, they are about embracing life and all that it has to offer us.

The last time I created something big was the Million $ Ghetto in Venice for kids who have parents that are in prison, that took nearly three months to plan. Lots of hard work, lots of tears and I was in the middle of my cancer treatments at the time not to mention homelessness, but in the end it all worked out.

Don’t even be afraid to take the first steps and don’t ever let anyone convince you that you can not take them.