prevention justice

Today at the National HIV Prevention Conference, the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance released two new position statements:

Current Conditions Challenge Anti-HIV Efforts, Threatening Potential Prevention Progress 

Ending the HIV epidemic in the U.S. will be built upon multiple pillars: a comprehensive,
national approach that strengthens HIV prevention, healthcare, housing, research, and the
protection of civil and human rights. Without a strong, national commitment to a full array of
needed strategies, HIV prevention efforts are unlikely to succeed in reducing new HIV
infections.

Click here for PDF

 A Call for CDC Action on HIV Prevention Justice

Leading public health officials and community activists agree - we need a paradigm shift in HIV prevention research and policy to inform and improve our practices if we are to turn the tide of HIV transmission.

The HIV PJA recognizes and insists on the need for full-government investment and involvement in HIV prevention. However, we come to the 2009 NHPC to issue a strong and distinct call for CDC leadership as the cornerstone agency of science-based public and preventive health in our nation.  Simply put, CDC must build the demand for HIV prevention across all communities and sectors needed in this fight against HIV/AIDS.

Click here for PDF

CHAMP New York was up early today for AIDS Walk 2009! 

Although we were bright, the early morning was not- rain drizzled over Central Park as we searched for our community partner table.  The balloons and the crowd were cheerful too.  And we expanded our team by hundreds, who slapped on CHAMP stickers as they walked by, wearing our slogan:

HIV is not just a disease- it's proof positive of injustice!  

If you are one of the dozens who picked up copies of the HIV Prevention Jusitce Principles, visit us at www.champnetwork.org to endorse the principles or for your organization to join the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance (HIV PJA).  The HIV PJA is hosting its next call on Wednesday, May 27 with guest speakers explaining the relationship between poverty and HIV.

Thanks to CHAMP supporters, our team raised more than $5,000!  With help like this from people in our network, we're able to sustain our independent work to build a community-based movement that links the fight for HIV/AIDS with human rights and social and economic justice.

And thanks to Victor Bernhardtz, we have some great photos!

On Saturday, January 23rd, more than 150 North Philadelphia community leaders and families with loved ones in prison met at the Philadelphia Recovery Community Center to discuss the services urgently needed to support those returning from imprisonment. And the group was serious about getting to work. Emcee Rev. Dr. McNear, Kingdom Care Reentry Network, was greeted with a chorus of responses to his calls for this not to be just another meeting with no action plan: “Yes, we can!” and “Yes, I will!”

This was the first in a series of Neighborhood Speak Outs organized by a new Philadelphia criminal justice coalition, the Support Center for Prison Advocacy.  The Support Center for Prison Advocacy was founded in July 2008 by the Institute for the Study of Civic Values, the Kingdom Care Reentry Network, and Philadelphia FIGHT, working in collaboration with CHAMP’s Project UNSHACKLE.

When someone goes to prison, the whole community is affected.  And community struggles do not stop when loved ones come home.  Once released, people will face difficulties accessing the services and mentoring they need to move forward and make new lives.  The Support Center for Prison Advocacy was founded on the belief that to address this prison reentry crisis, we all need to come together to build safer and more vibrant communities.
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This past Thursday Dec 18, 2008, having taken pleasure in a deliciously prepared Thai Cuisine lunch sponsored by The Univ of Penn, CFAR CAB, as a welcoming salutation to our distinguished guest speaker Dr. Thomas J. Coates, UCLA AIDS Institute at the David Geffen School of Medicine,  I couldn’t imagine anywhere else I’d rather be. That is to say except to join the migration to Penn’s BRB Auditorium along with both Drs. John and Loretta Jemmott, some Penn Staff & Researchers and members of the CFAR CAB. Here we were to be served the academic portion and the main course of Dr Coates expertise, through his lecture entitled” HIV Prevention What’s Next Globally”.

Through a conversation with Michael Blank, Ph.D., Co-Director Penn Behavioral & Social Sciences Core and Tiffany Brown, Penn CFAR CAB Coordinator, I learned it took every bit of “two years” to coordinate Dr. Coate’s appearance. As Vice-Chair of Penn’s CFAR CAB and a person who is living with AIDS, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Penn’s competent Staff for facilitating Dr. Coates’ appearance and affirm that Dr Coates’ appearance was well worth the 2 year wait. It was an enriching experience.   read more »

Our luncheon was thoughtfully planned to be small and intimate, which allowed for some informal conversation. Up until now, of course all of my encounters with Dr. Coates had been external and superficial. I knew of him and his work through teleconferences, list serves, medical journals, internet, magazines, web cams, closed circuit TV and satellite presentations at various conferences. I took pleasure in meeting Dr Coates face to face and I got the distinct impression that he liked me too, but I’ll leave him to blog about that. I found Dr. Coates to be good-natured, up-beat and charming. I knew I would learn many things today in the course of conversation over lunch and by way of his lecture, and unexpectedly one of the first things I learned was The David Geffen School @ UCLA (where Dr Coates joined the Division of Infectious Diseases in 2003) is “the only school in the world named after a Gay Man.” Mmm, I thought. Interesting.

Wednesday, December 17 is the 6th annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, initiated by the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP).  In cities across the U.S., Canada and Europe, and in Skopje, Macedonia, and Sydney, Australia, sex workers will remember their dead and show their movement’s strength at vigils, demonstrations and film showings.  For a list of events across the country and the world, visit http://swopusa.org/dec17/locations.htm.

This year, there will be a first-time-ever national march in Washington, DC.  Sex workers and their allies will gather in Franklin Square Park (14th St. NW and I St. NW) for a rally, and march to the Department of Justice to read the names of sex workers who have been murdered in the past year.

“Sex workers experience a disproportionate level of preventable violence,” said Kelli Dorsey, director of the Washington DC community organization Different Avenues, in a press release supporting the protest.  “People of color and transgender people are overwhelmingly targeted.  This discrimination is too often ignored.”<!--break-->

Arrest, deportation and police abuse, as well as the stigma and violence sex workers often experience from clients, in their workplace and in society, also put them at risk for HIV. It’s hard to demand your client use a condom when your first priority is preventing him from raping or killing you.  It’s hard to carry condoms while working on the street if cops use them against you as evidence. 
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