New CDC Announcement For Directly Funded CBOs

CBO_FOA_Dear%20Colleagues%20letter%20for%20Partners%20final.pdf

DCTF Conference

On September 15th, 2009 DC Tobacco Free Families is hosting the

“HOPE” Help Our Progress Endure Conference.

The conference takes place from 8:30am to 5:00pm at the United Medical Center.

Workshop opportunities include: Improving Health Outcomes in HIV Positive Smokers Through Policy, Programs and Media Initiatives and Creating Effective Anti Smoking Messaging for the LGBT Community in DC

Location: 1310 Southeren Avenue, SE

Washington, DC 20003

Register at http://www.dctff.info/dctf-conference/

Contact Pheobe Robinson at probinson@aladc.org or Charles Debnam at cdebnam@aladc.org or via phone at (202) 546-5864

GLAA Defends Public Funding for The DC Center

The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C. (GLAA) sent the following letter of support for the DC Center to members of the Council of the District of Columbia. The letters supports public funding for The DC Center. The HIV Working Group and the website www.fighthivindc.org are a program of The DC Center.


The Honorable Vincent Gray, Chair
Council of the District of Columbia
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004

Dear Chairman Gray:

We are submitting this for the record of your July 24 hearing to revisit the District’s budget. Mayor Fenty’s proposed cut to close the budget deficit will cause needless harm to the DC Center, which serves the city’s LGBT community, just when its mission has begun to flourish.

The DC Center is the only D.C. member of CenterLink, the national association of LGBT community centers. According to data from the 2000 Census, the District ranks among the top five metropolitan areas in the number of same-sex couples. Each of the other four—New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago—have long-established LGBT community centers with annual budgets ranging from $2 million to $43 million. Each of these community centers purchased a building and has received considerable support from its city.

The Mayor’s proposed sixty percent cut would decrease the Center’s building fund from the approved $500,000 to $200,000, and would decrease funding for the Center’s Crystal Meth Working Group from $150,000 to $60,000. We note that the city has no substance abuse prevention grant for adults, or the Center would apply for it. The amount originally approved for the DC Center’s building fund is modest compared to those in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. The Center’s current space limits its capacity to meet the community need.

Our city deserves an LGBT center on par with other leading gay population areas. After multiple attempts to establish a permanent community center over the years, the current Center has taken hold, and has been in existence for over five years. Its weekly e-mail goes to over 7,000 District residents. The Center is a growing and vital part of the District community.

GLAA is an advocacy group, and our lack of any financial interest in the District budget is essential to preserving our independent voice. The DC Center, by contrast, is service-oriented, and has stepped up to fill needs that were not being addressed by our city’s overstretched volunteers. Please do whatever you can to preserve funding for this invaluable organization.

Sincerely,

Mitch Wood
President

Community Education Group grant writing bootCAMP

Community Education Group Events is seeking 10 nonprofit community and/or faith-based nonprofit organizations to participate in a 2 day grant writing bootCAMP. It will be held July 30-July 31 2009. Come prepared with an old grant you want to resubmit, a new RFA you want to write, or an application you want to apply for in next 100 days to work one on one with grant-writing, budget, and evaluation specialists.

Who can attend?
Eligible attendees include organizations
-In Wards 7 and 8
-Offering HIV/AIDS or substance abuse programs
-East of the River with budgets under $300,000.

What’s on schedule?
Review, edit & revise your program narrative
-Incorporate national HIV/AIDS & Substance Abuse "Best Practices" in your implementation strategy
-Introduce standard practices in Evaluation, Budgeting & Data Collection
-Teach you how to compile & catalogue mandatory attachments
-Share grantwriting tips & offer relevant enhancements

Consultants will be on-hand to assist with the rewrite during the training and after.

Registration is on a first come first serve basis. Please register before July 24, 2009. Space is limited to 2 representatives from 10 organizations and pre-registration is REQUIRED!

YOU MUST HAVE A GRANT ANNOUNCEMENT From local government, federal government or Private Foundation or other entity due in the next 120 days **** If it is greater than 120 days, please contact the office.

Contact: Brittany@communityeducationgroup.org or call (202) 543-2376 extension 107

http://communityeducationgroup.org/

Please Check Out My Blog on RHRealityCheck.org

Paul Kawata's blog | RHRealityCheck.org - http://shar.es/Ye8F

Call for HIV Positive Artists

Are you an artist who is HIV positive or who has works about HIV/AIDS? We want to hear from you.

In observance of World AIDS Day, the DC Center is exhibiting art along the theme of HIV/AIDS.

If you're interested in displaying your work, please contact Clare@thedccenter.org or call the DC Center at 202-682-2245.

HOPE DC Poz Social at Larry's Lounge

Hope DC is hosting its monthly Poz social at Larry's Lounge. It will take place on Saturday July 25, beginning at 7:00 pm and ending at 10:00 pm. Larry's Lounge is located at 1836 18th St. NW.

For more information, contact HOPE@hopedc.org or call 202-466-5783.

Women’s Preventive Health Saves Lives and Families

By Paul Kawata, Executive Director, National Minority AIDS Council

Yesterday, the Senate HELP Committee approved an amendment to its draft health care reform bill that set the stage to ensure that all women have access to quality preventive health care, screening and the essential community providers that continue to be the lifeline for many.

We at the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) believe this amendment – offered by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) – represents a critical step forward in helping millions of women access preventive services, like HIV screenings, to help improve health outcomes and save lives. It also guarantees that all patients (men, women and children) in any health care gateway have access to providers like HIV/AIDS clinics, public hospitals, and women’s health centers.

Preventative care is particularly important for women of color. Often the primary care takers of their families, they tend to put the needs of their family members and children ahead of their own – to the detriment of their health. Since 1992, HIV rates among women of color have risen nearly 10%, with over 80% of all HIV cases among women in this country occurring among Black and Hispanic women.

These rates are symptomatic of the larger socio-economic and health disparities found in communities of color in the U.S., which have been disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS since the epidemic began nearly three decades ago. Together, high rates of poverty and homelessness, as well as lack of access to education, full employment and health insurance, have created significant barriers to health care in communities of color. These same trends often are found in rural America as well, where health care entities are severely limited, if available at all. Women in communities of color and rural areas often wait until symptoms of HIV disease or other illness are fully manifested, forcing them to use their local hospital emergency rooms for primary care and severely undermining their health outcomes.

Women’s Health Amendment #201 would cover women of color’s access to services from minority faith- and community-based organizations (MF/CBOs), which provide culturally competent and easily accessible health and HIV/AIDS services in communities of color throughout the country. Over 4,000 strong, MF/CBOs have saved countless lives by providing their clients easily accessible health care services. Supporting their ability to provide a diverse range of services will encourage women to take advantage of preventative services currently not included by the Affordable Health Choices Act: cancer screenings, well-women exams, pre-natal care, pap tests, and other prevention care, while accessing care for their children and other family members.

We are alarmed to learn that some of our representatives oppose health care reform. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R, UT) and the Family Research Council, among others, have falsely attacked this amendment as a mandate for abortion coverage. This amendment covers life-saving preventive care; abortion is not preventive care. To use a political red herring to attack preventive services that are desperately needed in this country – particularly by underserved populations, including the 70 million Americans who lack adequate insurance coverage for the routine health care that others take for granted, is offensive and preposterous.

A wide range of groups support protecting patients’ access to essential community providers, including Families USA, SEIU, Campaign for America’s Future, Health Care for America Now, American Nurses Association, American Academy of Nursing, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, National Association of People with AIDS, National Women’s Law Center, and the National Partnership for Women and Families.

We are calling on all people of conscious to unite around a common purpose: improving access to quality, affordable health care for all Americans, not launching inaccurate attacks that reek of old political debates. Call your member of Congress, write a letter to the editor, blog about this — get the word out that we will not stand for false accusations, as attempts to derail desperately needed health care reform.

Real World DC- Meet a Real World Epidemic

When an infection reaches 1% of a population it has reached the level of a 'severe and generalized epidemic. So what if an epidemic reaches 3% of the population? Well then, you're talking about the HIV/AIDS epidemic DC.

Real World's presence in the District brings with it an enormous opportunity to bring the nation's attention to the epidemic in its capital. This is a very real crisis facing the citizens of the city hosting the show, and we'd like MTV to use this opportunity to spread the word.

We'd like MTV to stock the Real World House with condoms, and to talk about the epidemic facing the District.

Join the facebook group and help spread the word.

free film about HIV in Africa

As part of Science in the Cinema - free film and discussion series, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Science Education (OSE) sponsors the film "Yesterday" about HIV in Africa.

Date: July 8
Time: 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.
Location: AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, Silver Spring, MD
Guest Speaker: Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health

NOTE: Filmed in Zulu language -- will be shown with English subtitles

Darrell James Roodt directs this heartfelt drama, the first Zulu-language film to be released internationally. Struggling to raise her daughter in a poor African village, Yesterday (Leleti Khumalo) finds the odds stacked against her when she learns that she's HIV positive. With her husband in denial, Yesterday must somehow find the strength to go on, determined to live just long enough to see her daughter go to school.

Rating: Rate R for pervasive strong violence.

More Information: http://science.education.nih.gov/cinema

Free Hepatitis C Training at Prevention Works Thursday, July 16

Free Training: Hepatitis C Prevention
Thursday, July 16th, 10am-4pm
Prevention Works!
2501 Benning Rd NE

This is part of our series of trainings facilitated by technical experts from the Harm Reduction Coalition in New York. This training is for service providers who work with current and former drug users. We will describe the mechanics of injection and identify potential transmission points of Hepatitis C. Effective prevention requires new models capable of addressing difficult real world challenges of injection drug users. This training will provide realistic strategies for preventing hepatitis C with injection drug users who continue to share drugs, as well as those who do not have clean equipment, focusing on both short-term and long-term injectors, including those diagnosed with hepatitis C.

Spaces are limited! To reserve a slot, please send me an email: mlevin@preventionworksdc.org

Volunteers needed: Kit Making Night July 14th 6pm

Kit Making Night
Tuesday, July 14th, 6-8pm
Prevention Works!
2501 Benning Rd NE
The much-beloved kit making nights are back! We will be putting together safer sex kits and wound care kits. We especially enjoyed the grandmother-grandson team who joined us last month.

Please zap me an email (mlevin@preventionworksdc.org) if you are interested in attending if you have not done so already.

Question: Can I bring a date to this?
Answer: Yes! In fact, you would not be the first one to do this.

Join Us For Conference Call On July 8th at 1:00 PM

Join Phil Wilson of Black AIDS Institute on July 8, 2009, at 1:00 p.m. (eastern)/10:00 am (pacific), for a special stakeholder call about a new HIV/AIDS campaign http://www.greaterthan.org created by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Black AIDS Institute.

To participate, call 1-605-475-6333 and enter access code: 481162.

You can submit your questions in advance to info@nmac.org. The call will be recorded for podcast at a later date.

National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day 2009

National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day, is a national campaign which highlights the complex issues related to HIV prevention, care and treatment for aging populations in the United States. This event takes place on September 18th, 2009.

HIV is a virus that does not discriminate by age. Nearly one in ten District residents aged 55 and older have HIV or AIDS. Nation wide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that in 2006 persons aged 40 and older accounted for approximately 35% of new HIV infections.

To learn more about HIV/AIDS and Seniors, visit this squidoo resource page: HIV/AIDS and the Aging Population in Washington DC..

Jello Wrestling Event Benefits the HIV Working Group

Mr. and Ms. Capital Pride Leather and Guest Cohost Regina Jozet Adams invite you to join them for Jello Wrestling at the EFN Lounge Tuesday, July 14th.

Proceeds from the night will support Brother Help Thyself and our HIV Working Group Toolkit! & Fukit! safer sex campaign.

Sign up to wrestle by 9:30 PM. The contest starts at 10:00 PM. $2 cover, $1 jello-shots, and $2 kick the keg drafts. Join us! EFN Lounge is located at 1318 9th St NW.

Are You HIV Positive? Tell Us What You Think!

Are you HIV positive? Have opinions about how services for people living with HIV can be improved in the District of Columbia. Then tell us what you think!

Stop by The DC Center (1111 14th St NW Suite 350) between Monday July 6th between 4:30 and 7:00 PM and fill out the Ryan White Planning Council Needs Assesment Survey. This survey is one of the tools that will be used by the District to plan HIV/AIDS services in the next fiscal year.

The mission of the Ryan White Planning Council is to plan for the comprehensive delivery of HIV/AIDS services and allocation of resources for the Eligible Metropolitan Area (EMA), as mandated by the Ryan White Title I legislation. For more information, click here to visit the Ryan White Planning Council Website.

National Minority AIDS Council Hosts Women of Color Leadership Institute

The National Minority AIDS Council will be hosting a Women of Color leadership institute July 29-31.

The Women of Color Leadership Institute (WOCLI) Training, designed by the Division of Government Relations and Public Policy (GRPP) at the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) in Washington, D.C., is aimed at achieving greater and more meaningful participation of women of color in decision-making at all levels to ensure programs, policies and funding respond to the unique impact of chronic diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Cancer and others on women.

The training consists of five modules implemented by the division of Government Relations and Public Policy at the National Minority AIDS Council. Training modules will equip and empower a cadre of confident, knowledgeable and skilled women leaders to 1) advocate at all levels for effective women’s health policies and increased funding to address the unique impact of chronic disease such as HIV/AIDS, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Cancer and others on women and girls, and 2) prevent the spread and mitigate the effects of chronic diseases through high quality, gender sensitive, community-based women’s health programs and services. Major activities carried out under each training component include a needs assessment on women’s leadership, management, advocacy and women’s health knowledge and skills.

NMAC seeks to recruit 25 - 30 women of color for each training site, on a “first come first serve” basis. NMAC will be happy to work with the local health departments, other public health entities, community- and faith-based organizations as well as local academic institutions to recruit the participants for training. Although criteria are not static, we intend to recruit a group of women of color from various health care and other backgrounds, committed to leadership in women’s health. As such, NMAC screens applicants and selects participants in a way that creates a balance of experience during the training.

The training is free of charge, however, NMAC does not provide transportation and lodging to and from the training. During the training provided under NMAC funding, NMAC will provide both breakfast and lunch for the three days of training.

Visit www.nmac.org/index/wocli for more information.