THANK YOU!

...for making National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day a success! Click HERE to download the three-day, September 25–27 NGMHAAD program book. We accomplished a lot, and we’re proud of it.

Because National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is a call to action!

•     At least 1.1 million Americans are living today with HIV.

•     Half of them are gay men.

•     One in five doesn’t know he is infected.

•     At least half, possibly as many as three-quarters of new infections come from people who don’t know they are infected themselves.

•     There is no cure yet for HIV. “Cocktail” drugs control the virus and keep us alive, but even with the “cocktail,” life with HIV is no picnic.

•     If we’re positive, we do better medically if we start treatment early – and being in treatment makes us less likely to infect others.

So it’s up to those of us who are gay men to –

•     Know our status – get tested as often as every three months.

•     Protect ourselves and our partners and lovers.

•     Make sure our community knows the epidemic isn’t over.

•     Make sure our community WORKS to end it.

And it’s up to us to make sure everyone knows we have the tools today to make new HIV infections a thing of the past. Prevention and testing outreach works. Condoms work. Treatment-as-prevention works. PrEP for people at very high risk works.

What doesn’t work is doing nothing. People are still getting infected with HIV – and people are still dying of AIDS – because we wait for someone else to do the outreach. For someone else to insist that our lawmakers give prevention, treatment, and research the funding they need. For someone else to call out HIV stigma and homophobia wherever we find them. For someone else to address the poverty and exclusion from healthcare that allow HIV to spread.

Click HERE to see pictures from our Sunday, September 25 fund raising and awareness raising Red Ribbon Party at Washington, D.C.’s Town Dance Club. Our thanks to the many in-kind and silent auction donors who helped make the evening one to remember. And our thanks to Town and Town’s wonderful staff!

Our thanks to everyone who presented at our Monday, September 26 National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Conference. Click HERE for the conference schedule and speakers’ bios. Click HERE for photos and more.

Our thanks to D.C.’s Number Nine for hosting the post-conference Positive Leadership Awards Reception. Click HERE for photos and more, and click the links below to read the full awards – it was our honor to recognize:

•     Human Rights Campaign’s Joe Solmonese, for his work to bring marriage equality to all Americans. NAPWA believes that EQUALITY = PREVENTION.

•     Miss Earline Budd, for her decades of advocacy for transgender people with HIV, and for reminding the gay community that it, too, can discriminate against “others.” NAPWA believes that RESPECTING DIVERSITY = PREVENTION.

•     Joseph O’Neill, MD, for distinguished public service in implementing Ryan White and conceiving and implementing PEPFAR. NAPWA believes that RESPONSIBLE NATIONAL ACTION = PREVENTION.

•     John Sullivan and Alvin Collins, for their years of courage, commitment and love in the face of long-term HIV disease. NAPWA believes that LOVE = PREVENTION.

Our thanks to D.C.’s Metropolitan Community church for hosting our Prayer Breakfast and Call to Action, Tuesday, September 27, the morning of national Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day itself, and to Reverend Edwin Sanders of Nashville’s Metropolitan Interdenominational Church for delivering a spellbinding keynote speech. The Prayer Breakfast ended with a Press Conference at which District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray announced a new initiative, in partnership with NAPWA and other ASOs, to reach the estimated 10,000 HIV-positive Washingtonians who don’t know they are infected.

Our thanks to Whitman-Walker Health, AHF-Blair Underwood Clinic, and Us Helping Us, for providing free all-day HIV testing.

Finally, our thanks to Americorps volunteers, East Coast Balloons, RCI sound systems, and guitarist Michael Bard for helping us pull off the Red Balloon Flash Mob in D.C.’s Dupont circle. Click HERE for pictures of a balloon release in remembrance and hope!

JOIN US FOR NEXT YEAR’S
NATIONAL GAY MEN’S HIV/AIDS AWARENESS DAY,
SEPTEMBER 27, 2012