Humans of NHC: Gio Gonzalez

NHC Central California member, Abigail Prado, interviews Gio Gonzalez for the Humans of National Health Corps collection. Read below! 

Giovanny Gonzalez (Gio) is a PrEP Navigator in the HIV Department at One Community Health. Gio became interested in this line of work due to his own HIV diagnosis and was able to be connected from a fellow community member to One Community Health. Since then Gio has described his time at One Community Health “a call of action” for him. “It was healing for me to fight against personal feelings of initial (HIV) diagnosis,” Gio added, “(Joining OCH) was beneficial for me since it allowed me to learn the Ryan White requirements and to better advocate for myself. It has also allowed me to know what to ask for when I go to other organizations outside of OCH.”

Gio never expected the HIV department and himself to vastly grow into what it is today. “Working at an FQHC, I expected there to be a lot of turnover compared to national and local rates as well.” When Gio first arrived he was on-boarded into a department that consisted of only 3 people. Everyone was brand new to their roles and later on Keshia Lynch (HIV Director) was hired. “When they (OCH) saw the clinic data matching national goals, then more staff members were hired. I could not be more proud of the department itself. PrEP has been exceeding the goals set by the clinic by increasing outreaches and talking to the community about our services. For me to see all this change be instilled, it's really incredible to see the growth.” 

After seeing the growth in PrEP, leadership suggested starting a coalition since there is no current coalition that solely focuses on PrEP. Gio took the initiative to form a PrEP coalition in Sacramento. He stated, “It began with myself, Jasmine Bright, Amber Ward, and Aaron Armor. [We] were the early members of the coalition. I called and emailed every organization in the area to meet at UC Davis to discuss PrEP.” The coalition began with a 3rd party facilitator, but afterwards realized they needed co-chairs. Gio stepped up first to take the co-chair position with no director experience. However, Gio has made great strides in his position by putting together a provider symposium of family doctors to talk to their patients about PrEP, especially at targeted populations and cultural backgrounds. “You need a new pair of eyes for insight,” Gio emphasized. “[I’m] very proud of the Sacramento prevention coalition and to be a part of it.”

Gio’s quote that inspires him to continue the work that he does goes, “I’m not brave, I’m not unique for this line of work. There are millions of people who do this work. We come at a time to come together to eradicate HIV/AIDS. We live off the back of giants. People who came before us gave each other their bodies to advance medicine. We owe it to them to end the HIV epidemic.”