In this issue:
- Meet our Shero of the Month: Lizzie Bellamy
- Organizing Spotlight: PWN Policy Fellows Sparks Statewide Conversation on U=U
- Webinar You Won’t Want to Miss
- Take Your Advocay to the Next Level: Apply for the PWN Policy Fellowship
- Registration for HINAC4 Is Open
- LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN: Receive a Handmade Valentine’s Day Card
Meet Our Shero of the Month: Lizzie Bellamy
Our January 2020 Shero of the Month is Lizzie Bellamy of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Lizzie is currently PWN-USA South Carolina co-chair and a lead member on the SC Powerhouses Organizing for Power Team. Lizzie is as an advocate to be sure–-but before all her accomplishments and leadership roles in advocacy, she is a mother and custodial grandmother. Though you could never tell it from looking at this fabulous and fierce “Glam-Ma,” she is considered the matriarch of her family. PWN Communication and Training Assistant Tiommi Luckett said, “Lizzie is just an all-around wonderful human being whom I have been honored to share space with, because she is passionate about her advocacy and learning, and you still get that maternal assurance that all will be well when in her presence.”
Lizzie was diagnosed with HIV in 1997. Today, at 43, she is a mother of five children and a custodial grandmother of eleven, while being an HIV advocate, peer mentor, and humanitarian. She reflected on becoming a custodial grandmother in 2019 and the challenges it presented, despite the joy is also brought to her life. She has been able to engage in advocacy activities because of the PWN sisterhood in South Carolina. When she needed encouragement, they were there. When she needed a babysitter, they were there. She said, “When I started advocating, my kids and family were always in my thoughts. My kids were still young, dealing with stigma in school, on the bus, and in the community. We had a sit-down, and I told them I wanted to be an HIV advocate.”
| Read more about Lizzie here |
PWN Policy Fellow Sparks Statewide Conversation in Oregon on U=U
Imagine being a woman living with HIV, truly apprehensive or extremely cautious when it comes to sexual intimacy. After all, you’ve been hearing for years that you have to use condoms every single time. Imagine the spark that goes off after reading an article in a magazine stating scientifically you can be intimate as a person living with HIV without the worry of transmitting HIV to your sexual partner. What are your next thoughts? What are your next actions?
Until she read the article in POZ magazine, no one had ever informed Sherryl Lamm, who recently graduated from PWN’s third class of policy fellows, that she did not have to live in fear of transmitting HIV to her sexual partner since she had been undetectable and remained adherent to her medications–even though she’d been active in her own health care ever since diagnosis. It was the first time she had been exposed to the U=U campaign. We interviewed her about her PWN Policy Fellowship practicum: a factsheet on U=U, plus resources, that she has been getting into clinics and AIDS service organizations in her home state of Oregon.
Q. What does the U=U campaign mean to you as a woman living with HIV?
A. What it means to me as a woman is multifaceted. It is a campaign of hope; it is empowering and destigmatizing; it gives the incentive to be adherent. It means that as long as I am virally suppressed, I cannot sexually transmit HIV to my partner. I can be intimate without being apprehensive. I don’t have to worry if a condom breaks. I don’t have to use a condom at all, if my partner and I choose not to use one. I can be sexually active. I no longer have to fear being in a relationship, and no one has a reason to be afraid of me. We are all sexual beings and having a healthy sex life is good for you, both mentally and physically. I no longer have to deny my sexual health due to fear. I could have a family, if I chose to, without fear of passing it to my partner or the unborn child.
| Read the full interview here |
Spend Valentine’s Day with Your Sisters!
Join Us for PWNCares Sister Circle: Romance after Diagnosis
Fri., Feb. 14 at 2pm EST/ 1pm CST/ 12pm MST/ 11 am PST
Join us for a special online event for Valentine’s Day! We will watch #PWNCares: Dating with HIV and have a live conversation with special guest women living with HIV to talk about what has and hasn’t changed in romance and dating since their diagnosis, to share tips, and take questions from participants.
| Register here |
Take Your Advocacy to the Next Level!
Apply for the 2020 PWN Policy Fellowship
Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN) is accepting applications for the fourth year of our PWN Policy Fellowship, a year-long program designed to prepare and support women and trans and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people to engage effectively in federal, state and local policy and advocacy.
To learn more and for tips on submitting a successful application for the PWN Policy Fellowship, watch the recorded webinar from Tues., Jan. 21.
Deadline to apply for the PWN Policy Fellowship is February 17, 2020.
| Submit your application here |
Register Today for HIV Is Not a Crime 4!
Registration is open for HIV is Not a Crime IV. The fourth national training academy to educate and train 300 people living with HIV (PLHIV), stakeholders and policy leaders to mobilize state-level advocacy to end HIV-related criminalization, will be held May 30 – June 2, 2020, at The Ohio State University in Columbus, OH.
| Register here |
We Love Positive Women!
Last Chance to Receive a Handmade Valentine’s Day Card
Visual AIDS, Fire Island Artist Residency, Positive Women’s Network — USA, The Well Project, and Dieu Donne are all collaborating to do something special for women living with HIV on the occasion of LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN 2020.
Are you a woman living with HIV who would like to receive a handmade card on Valentine’s Day for LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN?
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY to receive a handmade Valentine’s Day Card! To receive a handmade valentine’s card, please email your name and mailing address to [email protected].
Please note that the valentines are for women living with HIV only. Thank you for respecting this