Champions of Change

Champions of Change Blog

  • The Spark Needed to Compete for Manufacturing Jobs

    Posted by Nikki Sutton on June 10, 2011 at 3:12 PM EDT

    On Wednesday, the President visited Northern Virginia Community College and emphasized the need to match community college curricula with the skill sets manufacturing companies seek to hire.

    David Korelitz is currently benefiting from one of the programs President Obama spoke about, the General Motors Automotive Service Educational Program (GMASEP). The President shared David story:
     
    "All across America, there are students like the ones that I’ve met here at NOVA, folks who are gaining skills, they’re learning a trade, they’re working hard and putting in the hours to move up the profession that they’ve chosen or to take a chance on a new line of work.  Among the students I was meeting here, we saw some looked like 18-, 19-year-olds, but we also saw a couple of folks who were mid-career or even had retired and now were looking to go back to work.

    So these are men and women like David Korelitz.  David started at a car dealership as a apprentice.  And he’ll tell you, he was at the low end of the totem pole.  Then he entered GM -- the GM automotive program here at NOVA; started picking up new skills; led to better and more challenging work.  He began to prove himself as a technician.  And after he graduated he kept moving up.  So now, David is hoping to work hard enough to earn a management position at the dealership where he was an apprentice just a few years ago.
     
    And I want to quote David, because I think it captures what happens here at a place like NOVA.  David said whatever he ends up doing, the automotive training program here was “the spark [he] needed to get [his] career started.”  The spark he needed to get his career started."

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  • The 30-Year Anniversary of the Aids Pandemic: What Has Changed, What Needs To Change

    Posted by Beri Hull on June 10, 2011 at 12:46 PM EDT

    Ed. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.

    In the 30 years since the world first became aware of AIDS, a lot has changed.  As the communities most affected became less privileged, poorer, darker, more feminine, people living with HIV were increasingly dealing with additional layers of stigma. As the response to AIDS became less inclusive of the people most affected, the people most affected had less capacity to participate or advocate and many were faced with higher priorities as they struggled to support themselves, their families, and to understand what their diagnosis would come to mean for them and for their communities.

    We have been through difficult times where we saw ideology and moralizing punditry prioritized above the science of prevention and treatment even while we knew that people were needlessly becoming affected. We have seen a global effort to provide HIV treatment access, around the world, begin to diminish in the context of a great recession. At the same time, we finally have evidence of what many of us intuitively believed all along: access to treatment prevents HIV transmission. We see light at the end of the tunnel. 

    As a woman living with HIV global advocate, who is both a US citizen and a member of an amazing international network of HIV positive women (ICW), I see a global culture beyond the US that offers many valuable lessons. For example, the proportion of those living with HIV who are women has steadily grown since the beginning of the epidemic. In 1985, women accounted for 8% of new HIV diagnoses while in 2009, women accounted for 25% of those newly diagnosed. Women of color have been particularly affected are significantly more likely to be diagnosed with HIV than their white counterparts.

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  • Thirty Years of HIV/AIDS: A New Challenge Is on the Horizon

    Posted by Ron Simmons, Ph.D. on June 10, 2011 at 11:21 AM EDT

    Ed. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.

    When I reflect on the 30th anniversary of the HIV epidemic, I am simply amazed. Amazed that I am still alive after living with AIDS for over 20 years and that there is an effective treatment for HIV that is one pill a day. I remember the early days of AIDS, there was no name for it—only fear. Doctors were afraid to touch you. Nurses were afraid to feed you. And your friends that tried to give you encouragement to not feel hopeless, died themselves from the disease. Today HIV/AIDS is a preventable and treatable disease. There is a lot least stigma and fear. The President of the United States speaks openly and affirmatively about ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In many jurisdictions, government funded programs provide a safety net of health care and support for people with the disease. So much has changed in 30 years, yet new challenges appear on the horizon.

    One of the most serious challenges is the “paradigm shift” in HIV infection among Black men who have sex with men (MSM). Studies have found that the traditional paradigm, the theoretical model of a positive correlation between high HIV risk behavior and high HIV infection, may not be true for Black MSM. Such a paradigm shift would have a profound impact on the effectiveness of prevention efforts targeting Black MSM in the United States.

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  • Ending the Stigma of HIV/AIDS in the Asian Pacific Islander Community

    Posted by Jury Candelario on June 10, 2011 at 9:32 AM EDT

    Ed. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.

    It is truly an honor to be amongst passionate long-time AIDS activists during the “Champions of Change” roundtable at the White House. In reflecting back on the unparalleled activism that the AIDS movement has sprung, I commemorate and thank pioneers from the community I represent, the Asian Pacific Islander (API) community, including Ignatius Bau, Dean Goishi, Paul Kawata and Sukee Terada Ports; and the countless lives we’ve lost including my fellow Los Angelenos—James Sakakura, Patrick Sullivan and Christine Wu.  

    Thirty years into the AIDS pandemic, apathy and complacency has seeped in how America views HIV/AIDS. Meanwhile, we continue to see alarming increases in new HIV infections particularly in communities of color and our youth population. And despite advances in AIDS treatment, we must be reminded that being on life-long medication is not necessarily the ideal quality of life and that many in third world countries still have high AIDS mortality rates.

    This is why at my agency, the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team, we continue to seek innovative solutions and remain adaptable to resolve the complexities of HIV prevention, treatment, research, training and advocacy. 

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  • Winning the Battle Against HIV/AIDS

    Posted by David Ernesto Munar on June 9, 2011 at 2:41 PM EDT

    Ed. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.

    I am honored that the White House chose to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the HIV/AIDS pandemic with me and other openly HIV-positive organizers from across the country. We gathered recently with federal officials to reflect on the salient lessons learned and milestones marked in the fight against HIV/AIDS over the past three decades.

    Reflecting on this solemn occasion stirs a mix of emotions.

    In 30 years, HIV has caused tremendous loss and human suffering in every corner of the inhabited world. But it has also inspired heroic acts of kindness, generosity, and leadership. Looking back, we must laud the significant medical, political, and scientific advances achieved but also sustain a firm understanding of the unfinished work that lies ahead. With record numbers of people living with HIV and increasing numbers of new infections, we must reinvigorate efforts to provide people with and at risk for HIV/AIDS with the health and social services, housing, prevention, and human-rights protections they so desperately need and deserve. HIV knows no borders and neither should our compassion and actions.

    Recognizing the rapid maturity of HIV medical, behavioral and social sciences, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now considers HIV a winnable battle. To truly win the future, the U.S. must not relent until we’ve won the fight against HIV/AIDS.

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  • Champions of Change: Creating a Path to Transgender Equality

    Posted by Dee Dee Chamblee on June 9, 2011 at 11:15 AM EDT

    Ed. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.

    It is an honor to be selected as a “Champion of Change” by the White House in commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Being a long-term survivor (after living with HIV/AIDS for 24 years) has afforded me the rare opportunity to take control of my life and give it selflessly back to others. Someone was homeless before me, raped before me, discriminated against before me, wrongly incarcerated before me and experienced hate crime violence before me—yet someone survived. I stand before you as a living example of what a little hope can do for those among us.

    I founded LaGender in 2001 to address the unique needs of the transgender community surrounding issues such as HIV/AIDS, homelessness, incarceration, mental health wellness, discrimination and hate crime violence. These challenges personally impacted me and I could not find the resources to help me overcome them. Where there was no path I created one: LaGender Inc. My role as executive director and founder of LaGender Inc., a nonprofit organization that empowers transgender people, has been the vehicle I have used in order to create change.

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