We are proud to announce the 2019-2020 class (year 3) of PWN-USA Policy Fellows! This program, now in its third year, will build the policy leadership bench for women, including women of trans experience, directly impacted by the epidemic and historically underrepresented in the federal health policy advocacy arena. The program kicked off on April 5, 2019, when Fellows with an orientation webinar preluding a 9-month long curriculum where they will develop skills in policy analysis, research, coalition and relationship building as emerging leaders in the field. Click here to meet our Year 1 Policy Fellows. Click here to meet our Year 2 Policy Fellows. Click here to learn more about the PWN-USA Policy Fellowship.

Lizzie Bellamy (South Carolina)

Lizzie Vernette Bellamy-Richardson, born February 25, 1976, was raised and currently resides in the Longs, South Carolina community. Married at 18, Lizzie became HIV-positive in 1997. A year later she met Anthony G. Richardson (married in 2000). In 2008 she lost her husband, which left her a single parent of five. She began to have complications and had to be hospitalized in 2006. At 39 and undetectable, she started to advocate by speaking boldly and voicing the concerns of people living with HIV and distribute information about HIV/AIDS.

She has planned and carried out AIDS awareness events in her community. She has also been a member, participant, and advocate with Advocates for Positive Living support group. She was part of the March on Washington in 2012, became a Graduate of the P.O.S.I.T.I.V.E. Voices Women’s Academy in 2013. She planned a World AIDS Day Ball & Banquet with the help of Sistaz of Si’reniti Social Club of Longs, SC.  She continues to bring awareness to the youth by sharing knowledge and empowering them with skills to stop HIV-stigma and help them live life HIV free. By advocating she hopes to bring leadership to rural areas and make a big impact on survivors and communities by forming small organizations to bring an end to HIV/AIDS.

She attended her first Positive Women’s Network-USA summit: 10 Years Fierce Celebration in April 2018. In October 2018 she was inducted into 20/20 Leading Women’s Society of SisterLove Inc. She is a member of SC DreamTeam Coalition and Co-chair for Positive Women’s Network USA-SC Regional Chapter. Having attended NMAC’s Building Leaders of Color (BLOC) Program in January 2019, she continues to advocate in her community and on a local level with hopes of starting a food bank for people living with HIV. She continues to seek opportunities to speak about the effects of HIV-stigma and HIV.

Shelly Bowman-Brunk (Pennsylvania)

Shelly was born in New Jersey and grew up in Pennsylvania. She currently resides in Philadelphia. Shelly identifies as a transgender female. She loves music, nature, and doing her part to fight the injustices that she and people in the transgender community face every day.

Jamie Collins (Texas)

Jamie is a 50 year old African American trans female living with HIV. She has often been involved with organizations that were based on people living with HIV. But since being a PWN member, she is truly enjoying this next level of advocacy.

Sharon DeCuir (Louisiana)

Sharon S. DeCuir was diagnosed HIV-positive in 2002.  She is currently the Leadership and Advocacy Coordinator at Open Health Care Clinic. Sharon is an active advocate in the HIV/AIDS community when issues surround her community on the  local, state and federal level. and state. Her affiliations include service with the Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA), U.S. PLHIV Caucus, the Louisiana Governor’s Commission on HIV/AIDS & Hep C, the Southern HIV/AIDS Strategy Initiative (SASI), Positive Women’s Network – USA – former Vice Chair, Black AIDS Institute / BTAN City Co Chair. She is a daughter, sister and a friend, and she truly enjoys being a grandmother of five. She is eternally grateful that she has managed to strive with HIV to see this blessing that life has given her.

Elder Antionettea Etienne (New York)

Elder Antionettea ‘Dreadie” Etienne is an advocate that has been in the field against HIV/AIDS for over twenty years.  Dreadie has she is affectionately known in numerous communities is currently the Health Educator /Test Counselor  for the Just for Us Program that deals with Lesbians & Bi-women at Iris House, Inc. Elder Etienne is currently the Minister of Health & Wellness at Love Alive International Sanctuary of Praise. Elder Etienne has fought for Women’s Rights not only within the Correctional system, (State & Federal) but also locally, nationally & internationally in regards to multiple issues that concern women.

Elder Etienne represents various communities: LGBTQ, incarcerated and formally incarcerated, faith-based and all women of color. As an Afro-Caribe-Latina, she is spiritually bound to her work. She has been a chair, co-chair, board member & advocate for numerous CBO’s, ASO’s & faith based organizations, and Rikers Island Advisory Board. Rikers Island Consortium, New York City & State Prevention Planning Groups, GMHC Lesbians AIDS Project and the Women Institute at GMHC.  She has been the chair of and board Member of the Queens, Manhattan & Brooklyn HIV Care Networks. She has also been the chair and or co-chair for the Faith-based Initiative for Queens and Manhattan. She has also been the chair & co-chair for the New York Planning Council under Mayor Bloomberg, as well as the chair of the Formally Incarcerated Inmates Living with AIDS under the auspices of the Latino Commission on AIDS.

Brenda Goodrow (Pennsylvania)

Brenda has been living with HIV since birth in 1996. She lives in Milford, Pennsylvania with her adoptive family and works at a vegan cafe. She publicly disclosed her status on Instagram and Facebook in 2017 and has been using social media, poetry and prose to spread HIV awareness to break stigma ever since.

Deirdre Johnson (Virginia)

Deirdre Johnson is the Co-founder of Ending Criminalization of HIV and Overincarceration in Virginia (ECHO VA), a vast network of multiracial and gender inclusive Virginians led by people living with HIV and their allies, fighting for freedom from stigma and injustice for all. She also serves as the State Lead for Positive Women’s Network, USA.

Antoinette Jones (Georgia)

Antoinette Jones joined SisterLove, Inc. in April of 2018 as a Peer Navigator facilitating access to preventative care and treatment for people living with and at risk for HIV.  Antoinette was born positive and was adopted as a baby. Growing up in a serodiscordant family, she often felt alone as a child and without much social support until the age of 18.  Her positive experiences growing up were with medical professionals who helped her to manage her health while exhibiting sincere concern and compassion.  As a result, she was called to peer advocacy given the negative stigma many others living with HIV face in and outside of care. Antoinette attended Northern Virginia Community College and will resume her education at an Atlanta based college in the near future.

Sophia Kass (California)

Sophia Kass is a transgender woman and asylum seeker from Lebanon, Middle East. Diagnosed with HIV in 2013 then kidnapped in 2014 while on her way home from an underground LGBT club in Beirut, she decided to move to the United States to protect her physical safety and to acquire the adequate skill sets to fight back and advocate for the healthcare and legal rights of transgender people and people living with HIV. Sophia studied Biology and Marketing back in her home country and  finished a post graduate degree in Project Management at UC Berkeley in 2016. She joined the Transgender Law Center in 2017 because she believes in initiatives such as Positively Trans to empower trans and gender non-conforming individuals living with HIV to challenge and change status quos, inequities, stigma, and discrimination.

Korea Kelly (Kansas)

Korea Kelly is a Black transwoman, eldest sister of 5 loved ones, and a wife of a loving husband of 10 years.  She is better known in the community as “Korea Cavalli”, founder of Cavalli Entertainment LLC. Korea has a rich background in entertainment, LGBT advocacy, and leadership.  She is the first Black transwoman in Kansas City to own and operate a successful business, and has facilitated many local trans support groups that focus on providing access to tangible resources. In addition, she is one of the leading Kansas City historians of local Black & Brown queer culture.

Sherryl Lamm (Oregon)

Sherryl is a passionate, spirited, and energetic person. She is a proud wife, mother and grandmother. She was diagnosed with HIV in 1995 just as she was beginning her career with the Postal Service. She knows what a devastating and isolating diagnosis this can be especially for women. Her career afforded her with the opportunity to acquire skills in research, writing, public speaking, teaching, writing and implementing policy. She has advocated for autism, teachers and healthcare. She is just beginning her journey to “come out” and advocate for women living with HIV and is looking forward to making a difference.

Rica Rodriguez (Colorado)

Rica Rodriguez was diagnosed HIV+ in 1989. Rica began her HIV advocacy career in 2006 after being incarcerated several years prior and struggling with second chance opportunities she vowed to be the voice for people living with HIV who are reentering society and advocate for folks to receive healthcare, housing and overall wellbeing.

Rica is currently a Program Specialist in the Promotora de Salud Program at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and in the past has been a medical care manager for several AIDS service organizations and mental health facilities since 2008. As a Promotora, she continues to provide outreach rapid testing services and linkage to care in the Denver metro and surrounding areas.

Rica has been a member of PWN Colorado chapter since 2012 and today she sits on community advisory boards such as Caminemos Juntos, Children’s Human Immunodeficiency Program and Set Free Reentry Programs.

The mother of two HIV negative children and in a sero[discordant] relationship, Rica feels that advocacy and education is crucial for individuals who are HIV- to remain negative and for folks living with HIV to remain healthy and well.

Connie Shearer (Nevada)

Connie Shearer has been living in Las Vegas for six years now. They joined PWN-USA after meeting Waheedah Shabazz-El during a birddog training and civil disobedience event in Washington D.C. to resist the repeal of the ACA.  Connie is a public and outspoken advocate for people living with HIV, because they are a Long-term Survivor of HIV for 23 years themselves.  She is a certified advocate, and workshop facilitator, and she was a 2018 inductee into the 2020 Leading Women’s Society out of Atlanta, GA thanks to Sister Love.  They are the PLHIV Co-Chair for the NV HIV Modernization Coalition efforts in Nevada as well as launching a Positive Women’s Network – Nevada chapter as State Lead for PWN-USA. And they are the 2019 Las Vegas Ambassador for the Act Against AIDS Campaign supporting the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  In her spare time Connie enjoys spending time with her daughter Samantha her grandson, Amir and her two dogs, Sugar Bear and Rufus Rue.

M. Elizabeth (Izzy) Wilson (Kentucky)

Trained MH/SA counselor and freelance writer for OutLoud Magazine, International Bipolar Foundation and others.  Izzy has a passion for people living with HIV, the homeless, LGBTQ persons and addiction and mental health consumers.

“Once a mouthpiece for the patriarchy, my personal evolution to human rights activist lays at the feet of education and the advocacy of others. I want to be that Agent of Change in policy matters.”

Izzy plans to use this Fellowship as a springboard in her development of housing alternatives for people living with HIV and AIDS and transgender individuals; as well as to continue advocating across the board for various human rights.