Champions of Change

Champions of Change Blog

  • Lessons from Three Decades of HIV/AIDS

    Posted by Cleve Jones on June 8, 2011 at 5:52 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.

    When President Obama released the nation's first comprehensive national plan for responding to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it was remarkable for its scope and specificity. It was remarkable, also, that it took our country almost three decades to develop such a plan.

    Thirty years ago I was a junior staffer in the California Legislature assigned to the Assembly Health Committee. I remember vividly reading that first report in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), describing a cluster of gay men in Los Angeles with Kaposi's Sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia. Within just a few years, it seemed as if everyone I knew was dead, dying or caring for a loved one who was dying.

    I found out that I was infected in 1985. It would be nine years before effective treatments reached me and my friends and neighbors. With little hope for a cure or vaccine, we fought hard for prevention education campaigns, expanded research and access to treatment and services.

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  • The Impact of HIV/AIDS on the African American Community: Myths and Facts

    Posted by Hadiyah Charles on June 8, 2011 at 3:38 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.

    This past Tuesday, I was incredibly humbled and honored to be invited to the White House as a Champion of Change. As I toured the White House and met with administration officials I couldn’t help but think about how far we’ve come and how much more work needs to be done to end the HIV epidemic. 

    30 years later, we are still struggling with stigma, increased levels of miseducation and deep-rooted fear of those infected with HIV. Just this week, while drinking with friends and colleagues, I was reminded of how much more work we have to do when it comes to educating the public at large about how HIV is transmitted. We ordered a huge drink (bucket sized), one that came complete with six fun neon straws.  Folks were chatting, laughing and having a grand ole time. As the evening progressed, people began to forget which straws were theirs. One person exclaimed, “It’s okay if I drink from someone else’s straw—I’m not sick, its not like I have AIDS or anything!” That comment struck me like a lightening bolt… and I kept thinking, “Thirty years into this epidemic, and still, there are people that think HIV can be transmitted by drinking from the same glass or straw…”

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  • Reflecting on 30 Years…

    Posted by Dena Fontno-Gray on June 8, 2011 at 11:13 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.

    As I reflect on the past 30 years and all that has transpired in an effort to eradicate HIV from our lives, a mentor’s saying comes to mind…“Sometimes you have to build and fly the plane.” That was her way of telling us that there are core elements you must have in order to accomplish a task and that whatever is added to the core makes the “plane” or situation better. As a collective community, we can agree there have been some notable accomplishments that we can be proud of. Since the dawn of the epidemic, we have seen the mortality rate of HIV positive people decrease due to medical advances and HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy). We have advanced our understanding of the disease transmission by broadening our focus from behavioral risks to the inclusion of critical factors such as poverty and gender inequality. And important to most of us, we have worked with our federal partners to create the National HIV/AIDS Strategy under the leadership of President Barack Obama. Indeed, we can say we have core accomplishments or “the plane is flying.”

    As an African American woman living with HIV and an advocate for the positive community, I appreciate the opportunity provided by Champions for Change to offer voice to where we go next. By talking with other advocates and our federal partners, I can affirm that we are all still trying to put some real metal on the plane. In my humble yet tenured opinion, we must focus on three elements: un-blinded and active participation from within the HIV community, ongoing prevention education and community awareness and collaborative implementation of processes and services. HIV remains a preventable disease and if we continue to work together, it can be eliminated.

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  • Promoting the Dialogue on HIV/AIDS

    Posted by Christian F. Castro on June 7, 2011 at 1:00 PM EDT

    I am grateful to be here today with a wonderful group of committed individuals from across the country who have been so graciously asked to come to Washington, DC to talk to White House and federal officials about the 30th anniversary of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Many people have begun to reflect on this somber anniversary. Many individuals who were living during the early years remember the period of losing many friends, family members and lovers who were dying of a relatively unknown disease within the gay community. I have also listened to these stories and I’m touched by personal loss and grief.  I could never imagine losing so many loved ones so quickly. As one friend told me, “I was going to a funeral about once a week. And after a while, you become emotionally exhausted and numb.” This is a tragic moment in our nation’s history that we should never forget.

    As a gay Latino man who is living with HIV/AIDS and who was diagnosed 4 years ago, I grew up in a world where HIV/AIDS has always existed. My generation grew up with discussions about the importance of using a condom. Such information became commonplace in sexual educational courses at school, but more importantly amongst friends and family about using protection. This became part of our lives, about being “safe and protected.” Growing up as a teenager in the 1990s in New York City, I recall going to the Gay Center in the West Village trying to understand and connect with people in the LGBT community. One of the things I vividly remember were the health-related/HIV prevention posters plastered around the walls of the Center. Specifically, these were posters of good-looking gay men posing in a photograph sometimes holding a condom or in a group setting with similar looking individuals. Often, the text would state “use protection,” “be safe,” “it’s better to know.” And for a while, these messages resonated or encouraged dialogue within the community. Perhaps with the discovery of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) in the 1990s, our collective struggle to overcome HIV/AIDS shifted.

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  • Champions of Change: HIV/AIDS – 30 Years of Activism on the Frontlines

    Posted by Brian Bond on June 6, 2011 at 5:18 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.

    This month marks the 30th year of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, when the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first case of which would become known as HIV/AIDS. More than 50,000 people in the United States are infected with HIV annually, and today, more than 33 million people around the world are living with HIV. Two million people across the globe die every year from AIDS. Over 600,000, fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, aunts and uncles in this country have died due to this pandemic. Like others marking this milestone, some of the people who have been lost over the past 30 years are individuals that I had the privilege of calling my friends.

    There have been many positive efforts in combating this devastating disease, but more work needs to be done. Last year, the President announced the first comprehensive National HIV/AIDS Strategy for the United States. This strategy focuses on combinations of evidence-based approaches to decrease new HIV infections in high risk communities, improve care for people living with HIV/AIDS, and reduce health disparities. Also, the Administration increased domestic HIV/AIDS funding to support the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and HIV prevention, and to invest in HIV/AIDS-related research.  

    But as the President has said, “government cannot take on this disease alone.” That is why, as part of the Champions of Change initiative, the White House invited nine inspiring HIV/AIDS advocates for a roundtable discussion to meet with Administration officials including Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) Director Jeffrey Crowley, the HHS Assistant Secretary for Health, Dr. Howard Koh, and key staff from HHS, DOJ and HUD. The roundtable was intended to provide an opportunity for people living with HIV to reflect on their own lives and personal experiences as the Nation reflects on what has been achieved over the last three decades. It is also an opportunity for us to continue shining a light on this pandemic.

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  • From Immigration to Integration: One Immigrant at a Time

    Posted by Nancy Newton on June 4, 2011 at 12:07 PM EDT

    Nancy NewtonAs I sat in a room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the grounds of the White House last Thursday, I couldn’t help but think: How did I get here? How did I come to be selected as a Champion of Change for my work with immigrant integration? To my left sat peers from New York, Phoenix, Kansas City, San Diego, San Francisco and Philadelphia, four of whom had been awarded an E Pluribus Unum prize just the day before; to my right sat Eskinder Negash, Director of ORR, Cecilia Munoz and Felicia Escobar from the White House Administration and Alejandro Mayorkas, Director of USCIS; and around the room sat various officials all of whom had an interest in what my peers and I had to say regarding immigrant integration.

    As we began to listen to the reason for our being singled out, a sense of pride overwhelmed me. Our work was being recognized because of the innovative ways we are helping immigrants integrate in to life in the United States and it seemed that our opinions of immigrant integration mattered to those in attendance. 

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