AIDSWatch is NAPWA’s premium annual event to engage real people in the HIV community in educating our elected representatives. Hundreds of citizen advocates from all over the country, many of us living with HIV ourselves, descended on Capitol Hill, February 16-18, to make ourselves heard!


                                              AIDSWatch advocates on Capitol Hill

AIDSWatch is about legislative “Asks” – what we want Congress to do about HIV policy and funding. It’s also about telling our stories – meeting elected representatives and staff to give our "Asks" a human face and voice, to tell them what it’s like to live with HIV or serve those who do.

      The legislative “Asks”

We asked Congress for three things this year:

•     Invest in Full Implementation of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy
•     Defend Healthcare Reform and Support Implementation of the Affordable Care Act
•     Support Increased Funding of HIV/AIDS Programs and Protect Existing Funding
Click HERE to read the “Asks!”

      Where the “Asks” stand – and what YOU can do

Hours after our last Capitol Hill visits, House budget hawks passed H.R. 1, cutting all fiscal year 2012 domestic discretionary funding back to 2008 levels. This would reduce HIV program budgets by about 20% – in an economy where even current spending levels barely meet real needs and the state ADAP programs are in crisis. They also passed major cuts in HIV funding for the remainder of fiscal year 2011. Not only would the human impact of the cuts be devastating, the cuts actually work against the goal of balancing Federal budgets in years to come.

The House cuts become law only if and when the Senate votes them too, so your Senators need to hear from you!

What you can do:

•     Visit or call your Senators to ask them to undo the House’s false economies.

      Prepare! Click HERE to read the “Asks.” And click HERE to read the AIDSWatch training booklet. Learn about calling ahead to schedule a visit. Learn about making your pitch personal, constructive, and to the point. Know your stuff and focus on the issue that matters most to YOU.

•     Call or e-mail your Congressman or Congresswoman to demand a reality check on the fiscal prudence of the House cuts.

      Forty Representatives added their signatures to Mike Quigley’s and Barbara Lee’s letter requesting an in-depth Congressional Budget Office audit of the true costs of implementing the National HIV/AIDS Strategy – and the true costs of not implementing it. If your Rep was one of them, say thank you. Click HERE to learn how.

      And keep after your elected representatives to remind them this isn't just about human lives -- important as they are -- we're asking them to appropriate the HIV program funds needed this year to avoid much higher public healthcare costs in years to come. You can find your elected representatives’ e-mail addresses and office phone numbers at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.

      Positive Leadership Awards

AIDSWatch is not just a working event. It’s also an opportunity to honor those who have provided distinguished leadership in the HIV community since last year’s AIDSWatch. Some of the awards were sweet, and some were bittersweet, as we honored those no longer with us. Click HERE to visit NAPWA’s Positive Voice newsletter and read all about it!

Lee Hawn accepts a posthumous Positive Leadership Award
honoring his late husband Randy Allgaier

      Join us again next year!

The World AIDS Conference comes to Washington, DC next summer! Join us at next spring’s AIDSWatch to ask for HIV policy and budgets we should expect of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy and largest economy.

AIDSWatch is produced by NAPWA and the Treatment Access Expansion Project, with major support from Bristol-Myers Squibb and other donors. For more information on AIDSWatch 2011 and AIDSWatch 2012, contact AIDSWatch@napwa.org.