Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise

This is the first World AIDS Day in a very long time when I have no professional connection to the AIDS community. For five years I was employed by a supportive housing provider for PLWHAs doing training and technical assistance; before that, briefly as a health educator with an ASO.

While my life has now taken me in a different direction, my personal commitment to raising HIV/AIDS awareness and working for policy and funding changes to address the epidemis remains unchanged.I may not be on the frontlines of this battle any more but I want to make you aware of others who are.

Prevention Justice Mobilization is a newly-formed grassroots efforts to refocus the discussion about HIV around social justice issues. Prevention Justice believes that the best way to prevent HIV/AIDS is to ensure that all people have the economic, social, and political power and resources to make healthy decisions about our bodies, sexuality, and reproduction for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

This weekend, they are making their prescence felt in Atlanta, as the CDC National Prevention Conference gets underway.

With the 2008 presidential race heating up, Gay Men’s Health Crisis has prepared a report (available as a PDF) on where the candidates stand on establishing a domestic AIDS strategy. The current administration has no strategy other than to limit or cut existing funding (which is how I lost my last job) and not a lot has been said on the issue by candidates of either party in recent debates.

HIV infection rates continue to climb in the United States, especially among Black gay men. Old prevention messages are for some reason falling on deaf ears. This year we must commit ourselves to protection on a personal level and increased political activism in our communities.