This is a Bilingual project by Under My Skin founder Emilio Apontesierra. The project will be implemented within one online group where parents from ministries of faith communities are actively engaged in spiritually integrated practices. Behin the mask is creating, collecting, and offering best practices and information that can help raise children who understand the risk of HIV along with the creation and maintenance of an online healing space to address HIV Stigma.
The book: A parent’s guide to prevent HIV within their children is financed by The Gilead Compass Initiative under the Faith Coordinating center of Wake Forest University School of Divinity from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024. The name was inspired by knowing that storytelling is used along with masks and costumes to preserve and pass on the society’s values, morals, religion, and traditional and historical heritage. Also, offers tips on what to do if parent’s suspect their Childrens are moving away from abstinence. Apontesierra interpreted the fact that the target population of the project are using the screen of their electronic device to interact with others. The artist sees the screen as a mask that parents are using to keep their safety while reserving and passing on to their Childrens the society’s values, morals, and traditional and historical heritage of the faith practices of their congregations.
The project’s outcomes integrate visual art and writing prompts created by the project audience and the artist Apontesierra. A writing prompt is a topic around which you start writing ideas. It shows how the diversity of parent’s form faith communities can blend in harmony to create healing spaces to shift narratives away from stigma towards healing and life enhancing possibilities for African American individuals, Latinx populations, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and those impacted by HIV.