New York City - Eight years ago, Yannik McKie was arrested on federal charges of running guns and drugs to New York. On Tuesday, November 30, he read from his new autobiography, "Living in the Shadows", which tells of his transformation from a dismayed and angry orphan whose parents both died from AIDS by the time he was 14 to becoming a leader for other kids whose parents have died.

Yannik McKie and Chris Norwood.

The reading and book signing at the Community Church of New York in Murray Hill was sponsored by Health People's Kids-Mentoring-Kids program, a unique New York City program that trains older kids with ill and dead parents to be mentors for younger kids in the same, difficult situation.

Although New York City, with an estimated 10,000 youth orphaned by AIDS in the past decade alone and more than 55,000 currently with HIV+ parents, has the most AIDS orphans and youth living precariously in AIDS-impacted families of any city in the Western world, it has no programs or supports for these youth - neither does the federal government. Also, none of the big foundations, including the Clinton and Gates Foundations and Bono's Red Campaign - who give so much to support orphans in other countries - give a dime to help American AIDS orphans.

"What we want to show is the incredible courage of these youth - and their impressive efforts to help other kids overcome the incredible pain and isolation that so often goes with losing a parent to AIDS, said Chris Norwood, a Sag Harbor resident. "But of course, they do need at least some help and backing for their efforts to help other kids and it is appalling that the United States would be a full generation into the AIDS epidemic without having made any commitment to its own orphans."

Waldo Jackson.

Prior to McKie's reading, Health People Mentoring Coordinator Michael Goodhope introduced several special guests, including Bruce Beckwith who in his role as director of the Children's Hope Foundation for eight years has worked to change the lives of children who are disadvantaged through illness, disability or poverty; Ruby Garner, who has AIDS and is the single parent of two teens and Iretta Rivera, one of Health People's Teen Mentors.

Beckwith spoke about the desperate need for more such programs as Health People which was made evident by the next speaker Garner. She gave a heartrending account of how she tried to commit suicide several times after learning she had contracted AIDS from her husband who unknown to her had a boyfriend on the side.

Health People Teen Mentor Rivera, who lost her mother to AIDS when she was only 11, has been active with the program for six years – first as a mentee and now as a mentor - shared with the audience her personal story which was filmed for the new You Tube site where other kids orphaned by AIDS or whose parents are ill with the disease can "talk to" and encourage each other. Her moving testimonial can be viewed on www.youtube.com/user/AIDSmyfamilyandme

"Living in the Shadows" author 32-year-old McKie spoke movingly about being orphaned as a teenager, falling into gunrunning and drug dealing and, after his federal trial, began a program for neglected and parentless youth - with the federal prosecutor who tried him as his strongest supporter! For more infomation go to www.yannikmckie.com.

Jahlyn McKie.

Health People: Community Preventive Health Institute (formerly Health Force) is a groundbreaking peer training, prevention, and support organization based in the South Bronx. Started in 1990 as women's AIDS prevention and support program, Health People has grown, using its peer-education model, to provide a full range of HIV/AIDS services for men, women and families, as well as to start a large community asthma program, New York's first diabetes peer educators program and a community smoking cessation program. Health People's Jr. Peer programs include teens who are mentors for younger children, teens who teach asthma attack prevention and teens teaching tobacco cessation.

In all its programs, Health People has successfully utilized its original model of training the people most affected by disease to become peer educators to help others and advocate for the community. Health officials from five continents, as well as from all over the United States, have come to Health People's South Bronx offices to learn more about starting these effective, empowering programs in their own communities.

Norwood, a prize-winning author and healthcare advocate, began Health People after breaking the story in Ms. Magazine that women with AIDS were routinely undercounted, and their deaths attributed to other causes. The program, then called Health Force, began in a single room at Bronx Community College. In March 2004, Health People, having grown and developed into a multi-faceted agency, spun off from CUNY, its former fiscal sponsor, to become an independent nonprofit organization. Today, the program has 46 on staff and serves some 3,000 people a year.

For more information about Health People go to www.healthpeople.org.

Yannik McKie with his book, "Living in the Shadows."