Ms. Foundation for Women - Women and AIDS

http://www.raisethefloor.org/our_work/broad-change-areas/womens-health/women-and-aids


National Women and AIDS Collective

Women and AIDS

Since the early 1980s, the face of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S. has dramatically changed. HIV/AIDS incidence among women has more than tripled; today women account for more than 27 percent of new cases. Women of color are disproportionately impacted at alarming rates: while Black women and Latinas make up just 25 percent of women in the US, they represent 81 percent of AIDS diagnoses among women. In 2004, the last year for which data is available, HIV/AIDS was the leading cause of death among Black women aged 25-34.

Since 1996, when the Ms. Foundation first began to address the impact of HIV/AIDS on women, we have remained the only national funding source solely dedicated to supporting advocacy by and for women living with HIV/AIDS. By providing grants, technical assistance, and networking opportunities to state and local groups, we build the capacity of HIV positive women and their organizations to advance policy change that will improve their lives and stem the U.S. epidemic overall.

Over the past decade, Ms. Foundation funding has given rise to a vibrant, grassroots women and HIV/AIDS movement. Our past and present grantees represent a powerful network of community-based organizations—many of which started with little funding, resources, or paid staff. Day in and day out, they provide a lifeline to HIV positive women seeking access to a range of support services, all the while elevating women’s voices and solutions to policy platforms nationwide.

Today, our grantees are advancing their policy expertise at decision-making tables across the U.S.—from local councils that determine the allocation of community and county resources to the CDC and the Office of National AIDS Policy. Together, they’re making critical connections among the many social, economic and environmental issues that place women at risk and igniting change to ensure that HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care policies and programs finally meet women’s unique and unmet needs.

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Incubated at the Ms. Foundation since 2005 and established as an independent non-profit in 2010 (read the full press release), NWAC is the first and only national policy network of organizations led by women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, and a key voice of the national women and AIDS movement. The collective was formed by Ms. Foundation grantees at a national policy summit to advocate for the critical federal HIV/AIDS policy changes required to meet the unique and unmet needs of women living with, or at risk of, HIV/AIDS nationwide. Read more

SMART (Sisterhood Mobilized for AIDS Research and Treatment) University welcomes all women living with or affected by HIV/AIDS who are interested in getting control of their lives; willing to listen and be heard; and interested in learning how to better their health in order to live longer and healthier lives. Learn more and view video

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Ms. Foundation for Women, 12 MetroTech Center, 26th Fl, Brooklyn, NY 11201 Telephone:(212) 742-2300|Fax: (212) 742-1653|Email: info@ms.foundation.org