PWN-USA’s Mission & Values

The mission of the PWN-USA is to prepare and to involve women living with HIV, including folks of transgender experience, in all levels of policy-making to improve the quality of women’s lives, by: 

  • Combating HIV-related stigma and demonstrating that women living with HIV are part of the solution;
  • Training and supporting women living with HIV to be leaders;
  • Creating and sharing tools for women and HIV advocates; and 
  • Mobilizing for strategic campaigns to change policies. 

PWN applies a gender equality and human rights lens to the HIV epidemic to achieve federal policies grounded in the reality of women’s lived experiences.

Our Values

As a natural network of self-identified women living with HIV, we value creating a supportive environment that fosters our eleven basic values: Self-identity, Root Cause Analysis, Changing the Balance of Power, Prioritizing Impacted Communities, Sustainability, Meaningful Involvement, Allies, Herstory, Mentorship, Accountability, and Leadership Development.

We value explicitly being a network of self-identified women living with HIV, inclusive of folks of transgender experience.

  • We value the analysis that the HIV epidemic and its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities are symptoms of larger structural injustices–including but not limited to racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and stigmatizing attitudes towards communities vulnerable to acquiring HIV. 
  • Specifically, we believe that the full human rights and dignity of people living with HIV, all women, people of color, low-income people, sex workers, LGBTQ persons, and people who use drugs must be upheld in order to prevent HIV transmission and ensure a high quality of life for those living with HIV. 

  • We recognize that creating sustainable long-term solutions requires changing who’s in power and how power is held. 
  • We value building a new power base of women living with HIV in the U.S. We also value sharing power and consensus decision-making within our network structure.

We value decision-making processes that prioritize those most impacted by the decision. Within our network, we value supporting the visible and meaningful leadership of women living with HIV, especially women of color, low-income women, and women who face barriers accessing technology and/or information.

We value sustainable solutions to problems and working in a way that is sustainable. We value paying and otherwise compensating women living with HIV for their time, we also value work-life balance and creating work and volunteer environments for women living with HIV that honor our whole beings.

We value the leadership, participation, input, and perspective of all women living with HIV at every level of organizational and political leadership–including women at all places of the HIV disclosure spectrum and women at varying levels of literacy and technology access.

We value the perspective and wisdom of people of any gender and any HIV status who supports our vision, mission and goals.

We value learning from the past. We honor the women and men who have walked this path before, including those who are with us and those who are not.

We honor expertise within our network and outside of it, and we value fostering supportive environment to learn. We also value sharing our knowledge and teaching others.

We value holding each other to a high standard of commitment and follow-through. We value taking input from as many members as possible before making decisions.

We value developing ourselves as more effective leaders; identifying and supporting new leaders, and creating space for emerging leaders.