In this issue:

Meet Our Shero of the Month: Deirdre Johnson
Organizing Spotlight: Black AIDS Institute–We The People
PWN Welcomes Jessica L. Carter as Organizing Director
PWN Is Hiring a Policy Associate
Webinars You Won’t Want to Miss
Celebrate the Birthday of the ACA–Share Your Health Care Story

Meet Our Shero of the Month: Deirdre Johnson

Our February 2020 Shero of the Month is Deirdre Johnson of Petersburg, Virginia. PWN Policy Director Breanna Diaz said, “Deirdre is a kind, compassionate and fierce advocate fighting for her community here in Virginia. Her advocacy is founded on the belief that no policy should be created and implemented without community involvement–and Deirdre ensured that was the case. PWN-USA is proud to see her growth as a policy expert and is excited to see what she accomplishes in VA–and beyond.”

Deirdre began advocating four months after being diagnosed with HIV when she was six months pregnant. She says she is “in her 19th year of HIV living with her.” Deirdre is a mother who was very strategic about her advocacy while her children were still in school so that it didn’t impose any negative consequences on them. She and Cedric Pulliam co-founded the ECHO VA coalition, which stands for Ending Criminalization of HIV and Overincarceration in Virginia, which is currently working on changing the state’s HIV criminalization laws. Deirdre is also a PWN Policy Fellow Year 3 graduate and the PWN State Lead for Virginia.

We The People: A Black Plan to End HIV in America

A year after President Trump gave his State of the Union Address where he announced the initiative Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America (EtE), Black AIDS Institute (BAI) published its response to the call from the EtE initiative for doing things differently and encouraging innovation in the HIV response. Their groundbreaking report, We the People: A Black Plan to End HIV in America, took up the charge. This report on the state of AIDS in Black America is the first under the visionary leadership of new President and Chief Executive Officer Raniyah Copeland. Positive Women’s Network – USA interviewed BAI’s Communications Coordinator L’lerret Ailith about the vision and purpose of the report.

Q. We the People, A Black Plan to End HIV is an extensive, thoroughly researched framework for inclusivity, dismantling anti-black racism in America and the empowerment of Black people living with or vulnerable to HIV. What made you decide to take on a project of this scale? How did you go about researching it and coming up with its recommendations?

A. There have been advocates and organizations that have talked about how to end HIV for Black people, and we’ve been producing annual states of AIDS reports since 1999. Over the past decade, there has been this new conversation about being able to end the HIV epidemic, but there has not been investment in ensuring that it happens in a way that’s more than biomedically focused. And we know that biomedical tools are not the key, and we actually see that it increases disparities due to lack of access, education, etc.

Read the full story here

PWN Welcomes Jessica L. Carter as Organizing Director

Positive Women’s Network – USA is thrilled to welcome the newest member of our staff! Jessica L. Carter joins PWN-USA as our organizing director. Jessica brings experience in community, electoral, issue-based, and labor organizing to our organizing department at a pivotal moment where PWN members and allies around the country are focused on educating, engaging, and mobilizing their communities to participate in the 2020 election.

“PWN’s goal is to build long-term power in the communities most impacted by the HIV epidemic domestically. Jessica brings experience organizing in communities impacted by the racist prison industrial complex, a background in civic engagement, and a deep commitment to advancing equity in the South, where over half of women living with HIV and a majority of Black women living with HIV reside. We are thrilled to welcome Jessica to the PWN team and to the HIV organizing community.”
—Naina Khanna, PWN-USA Executive Director

Jessica was born and raised in Philadelphia, MS, and graduated from the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science in 2005. Jessica then became the first person in her family and hometown to attend an Ivy League university; she graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, with a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations.

PWN Is Hiring a Policy Associate

Positive Women’s Network-USA (PWN-USA) is a national membership body of women and people of trans experience living with HIV. We are dedicated to leadership development, movement building, and intersectional policy advocacy to advance human rights and dignity for all people living with HIV.

We are seeking a candidate who understands the HIV epidemic and the domestic policy response as a symptom of broad-scale inequity and multiple injustices–specifically the criminalization of marginalized populations.

PWN-USA’s Policy Associate supports the organization’s national and state-level policy activities with a focus on robust, community-led efforts to decriminalize HIV and sex work and on advancing meaningful partnerships and collaborations with other intersecting movements that address surveillance, policing, and mass incarceration, especially as they impact Black, Latinx, and trans communities. We are a flexible and adaptive organization; we value candidates who come with strong values alignment, a commitment to policy work informed and led by directly impacted constituencies, and who are able to think on their feet to adapt policy advocacy strategies in the moment. The Policy Associate will report to the Policy Director.

We are a national organization with staff currently based in Oakland, Miami, Little Rock, Dallas, Houston, and Richmond. The Policy Associate can be based anywhere in the U.S. but must be comfortable with an online work environment.

Read the full job description here

Webinars You Won’t Want to Miss

This NWGHAAD, Commit to Being a #HealthCareVoter!

Thurs., March 5 at 6p EST/ 5p CST/ 4p MST/ 3p PST

March 10 is National Women and Girls HIV Awareness Day (NWGHAAD). Do you know the best solution to “end the HIV epidemic” among women?

Hint: it’s not condoms. It’s not shaming people about their sexuality. It’s not taking and sharing viral data without our consent. And it’s never been about changing the choices women make in our bedrooms.

That’s why PWN is asking our community to mobilize for better health care for all this election cycle.

Join us on Thursday, March 5, at 6pm EST/ 5pm CST/ 4pm MST/ 3pm PST to discuss how the HIV community can advance women’s rights and gender equity by organizing to win universal health care in 2020 and beyond!

COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Preparation for People Living with Chronic Illnesses in the U.S.

Sat., March 7 at 1p EST / 12p CST / 11a MST / 10a PST

Share and discuss lifesaving, practical tools and support for preparedness and mutual aid for people living with HIV and other chronic illnesses in the US, incorporating disability justice, emergent strategies & mutual aid practices. The webinar is sponsored by The Cranky Queer Guide to Chronic Illness, with initiating co-sponsors AIDS United, Counter Narrative Project and Positive Women’s Network – USA.

The webinar will include:

practical stories/examples of effective mutual aid and care networks;
specific measures to implement regarding this fast-moving situation;
perspectives and strategies from a family practice/urgent care doctor and healer;
an opening grounding and a breakout room offering somatic and grounding practices.

It will NOT include individual medical advice. Presenters are JD Davids, Crissaris Sarnelli,MD, primary care/family doctor and healer; and Elandria Williams, Executive Director and Trainer, PeoplesHub.

The Well Project Unplugged:

Let’s Talk About Women and HIV

Tues., March 10 at 12:30p EST/ 11:30a CST/ 10:30a MST 9:30a PST

Our partners at The Well Project will be conducting a webinar in honor of #NWGHAAD entitled, “The Well Project Unplugged: Let’s Talk About Women and HIV” on March 10, 2020 from 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm ET. This webinar will touch on a number of important issues among women living with HIV, including stigma and self-stigma, balancing concurrent health conditions, accessing mental health services, self-care, and U=U. The Well Project’s executive director Krista Martel will present select results from their survey, “Together We Are…Making an Impact” and moderate a discussion with several of their incredible community advisory board members including Gina Brown, MSW, Ciarra Covin, Porchia Dees, Jyoti Dhawale, Maria Mejia, Bose Olotu, and Wanona “Nunu” Thomas.

Celebrate the Birthday of the Affordable Care Act

Share Your Health Care Story

What did the Affordable Care Act mean to you or someone you love? Many people living with HIV got health insurance coverage for the first time through the protections of the ACA, whether through its protections for people with pre-existing conditions or through Medicaid expansion. Write a blog (or record a vlog on video!) for PWN to share how the ACA benefited you and send to [email protected].

March 2, 2020