Advocacy in Action
 
2016: Through Victories and Heartbreak, 
We're Still Here


What a year 2016 has been--full of laughter and disappointments, triumphs and setbacks, growth and loss. Through it all, Positive Women's Network - USA is proud to have been on the front lines with you, our community. Whether we are pushing forward or fighting back, we are in this together.

Here are just a few highlights from 2016:

  • We came, we saw, we SPOKE UP! PWN-USA's SPEAK UP! National Leadership Summit was  the place to be in September, bringing together 250 women living with HIV, including women of trans experience, from 30 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Canada for 4 days in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, to learn, grow and build community together. Participants reported increased understanding of critical policy and social justice issues and enthusiasm to take leadership in advocacy spaces.
  • We have put HIV criminalization on notice! From the extraordinary legislative victory in Colorado led by the fierce women of PWN-USA Colorado, to helping craft and get signed into law a bill in California that allows for organ and tissue donations between people living with HIV, we saw state-level wins! PWN-USA also proudly served as a partner to our good friends at the SERO Project in organizing the HIV Is Not a Crime II Training Academy. We remain committed to  ensuring that HIV decriminalization advocacy centers leadership by communities most vulnerable to criminalization and mass incarceration.
  • PWN-USA went global! We are proud to be one of the founding partners of HIV Justice Worldwide, an initiative made up of global, regional and national civil society organizations - most of them led by people living with HIV - who are working together to build a worldwide movement to end HIV criminalization. All of the founding partners have worked individually and collectively on HIV criminalization for a number of years. We were also proud to present sessions at the 2016 International AIDS Conference, the Women Now! Conference and the Beyond Blame Pre-Conference in Durban, South Africa, in July.
  • PWN-USA's regional organizing program expanded and flourished! We affiliated a new regional chapter in the Greater Houston Area; PWN-USA Philly led a Stand Up to Stigma campaign funded by a Positive Organizing Project (POP) grant from AIDS United; PWN-USA South Carolina secured funding for their campaign to repeal HIV criminalization laws in their state (also through the POP grant); and chapter members in South Carolina, Philadelphia, Louisiana, the Bay Area, Georgia, New York and Colorado got intensive in-person trainings to sharpen their skills and increase their capacities to build and execute strategic advocacy campaigns. 
  • We trained and supported hundreds of new and seasoned advocates! Through 15 free webinar trainings and at least 15 in-person trainings from coast to coast, we helped develop hundreds of advocates living with HIV in everything from campaign development and media strategy to policy analysis to voter mobilization. We directly trained over 350 women living with HIV, reached thousands of additional stakeholders through trainings and presentations, and piloted innovative new programs, such as Butterfly Rising, a trauma-informed leadership training, and PWN Academy, which graduated 13 women living with HIV as certified PWN trainers. In 2017, we are on track to train and support the leadership of even more people of color living with HIV, in collaboration with our partners at NMAC, Transgender Law Center, the U.S. People Living with HIV Caucus and THRIVE SS, through the BLOC HIV (Building Leaders of Color Living with HIV) program funded by a grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).
  • We released a groundbreaking report on what women living with HIV need! This March, we released our community-based participatory research project, Securing the Future of Women-Centered Care, led by 15 women living with HIV. Released for National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, the report examines specific, unique needs of women living with HIV based on data from nearly 200 surveys and makes policy recommendations to protect their health, rights and dignity.
  • We observed our third annual Day of Action to End Violence Against Women Living with HIV!  Our second-to-none policy department released a new factsheet analyzing criminalization as structural violence against women living with HIV for the October 23 Day of Action, as members across the country held events, participated in our Twitter chat and other social media actions, wrote blogs  and more.
  • Our policy department grew! We are thrilled that Arneta Rogers is now the Policy and Advocacy Manager, based in Washington, D.C., and Cammie Dodson is the HIV and Reproductive Justice Legal Fellow, based in Oakland, CA. 
    (Get to know our amazing PWN-USA staff  here .)
  • We were at the table! PWN-USA members and staff served on the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA); participated on the Federal AIDS Policy Partnership and the AIDS United Public Policy Committee; and countless consumer advisory boards and Ryan White planning councils across the country. We helped launch the End HIV/AIDS Houston Project, revised the Colorado HIV Strategy, and presented at the US Conference on AIDS, AIDSWatch, AIDS 2016, HIV is Not a Crime, Creating Change, Positive Living, the White House Office of National AIDS Policy Stigma Reduction Summit, the Office of Women's Health Convening on Women, HIV and Aging, and many, many other gatherings. 

What's Ahead for 2017?

If 2016 was a challenging year indeed, 2017 promises even more formidable challenges still. As people living with HIV and at the intersection of multiple oppressions, fighting for our lives is nothing new. At PWN-USA, we are channeling our grief and outrage into action. We commit to holding our community even closer as we take a strong, relentless stand to protect the most vulnerable among us and those who have already been targeted by the incoming administration. We will fight with everything we have to uphold the rights and dignity not only of women living with HIV, but also of all people who are Black, brown, Muslims, immigrants, transgender or gender nonconforming, LGB, living with disabilities or chronic health conditions, low-income, as well as anyone else whose rights are threatened simply because of who they are.

2017 and the years beyond hold a great many unknowns. However, we are preparing and strategizing for battles we know lie ahead, including:
  • Protecting access to affordable, quality health care for people living with HIV and all people
  • Fighting any proposals or policies that criminalize, increase the surveillance of, or otherwise limit the human or civil rights of people living with HIV, people of color, Muslims, immigrants, the LGBTQ community and others
  • Protecting bodily autonomy and access to reproductive health care, including the right to safe, accessible abortion and contraception 
A few things you can expect from PWN-USA over the coming years:
  • Regular calls to action to oppose any and all presidential appointments, proposals, bills, executive orders or other actions that harm or threaten vulnerable communities
  • Increased political education and training to ensure our communities have knowledge and skills to fight back, including an anti-racism curriculum which will be launched in early 2017 (see below)
  • Launch of a PWN Policy Fellowship for women living with HIV
  • Unflinching commitment to speak truth to power
  • And several other new projects launching in 2017 - stay tuned!
As we strategize for the battles 2017 promises, we urgently want to hear from you to get a better understanding of what your priorities are and what you are willing and able to do so that we can support your efforts and increase our capacity to fight. 

The PWN Policy Workgroup will be hosting a listening session open to all women living with HIV (including women of trans experience) on Wednesday, January 11, at 6 PM EST/5 PM CST/4 PM MST/3 PM PST.
RSVP here by January 9 to get the call-in information. 

If you are interested in joining the policy workgroup, please contact Cammie at cammie.pwnusa@gmail.com.

Not a woman living with HIV, but want to support our efforts? We need your support more than ever to do this critical work in 2017 and beyond! Donate to PWN-USA today.


Women of PWN Dismantling Racism

To the Positive Women's Network Sisterhood and Allies -

At the 2016 PWN Speak Up Summit in Ft. Walton Beach, white women living with HIV committed to study and challenge racism, within ourselves and in our communities. We promised to do this work even when it makes us uncomfortable. We want and need to stand with our Black and brown sisters living with HIV in the struggle for dignity, justice, and rights for us all.   

The election of Donald Trump and Mike Pence has shaken this country to its core. As women living with HIV, we are gravely concerned about our ability to maintain our health care, housing, childcare, wages, and support services. As white women living with HIV, we are also frightened for the safety of our Black and brown sisters, cisgender and transgender, for our own Black and brown children, and for all members of non-white and non-Christian, non-heterosexual communities. As this wave of white supremacy crashes over our country, we commit to stand together and to fight alongside our Black and brown sisters and communities.  

Starting in January 2017, our newly formed group, Women of PWN Dismantling Racism, will initiate an antiracism curriculum by and for white women living with HIV.
We will host webinars for all women living with HIV where we can meet, hear, learn, and support each other. As we do this, we will continue, on our own and through PWN, to monitor events in Washington, hold all our elected officials accountable and take action to fight anything that negatively affects marginalized communities or our Black or brown sisters in any way. We will continue fighting for justice for women living with HIV, our families and our communities. 

We invite you all to be part of our kickoff webinar January 17, 2017, 5:30 - 7 PM EST (2:30 - 4 PM PST) as we provide an overview of the curriculum goals and welcome those who want to participate in and support this work. Please register for the webinar here.
 
In Sisterhood, Solidarity, and Action -  
Women of PWN Dismantling Racism.

A Price Too High - Speak Out Now!

Last month, the president-elect announced his decision to nominate ardent opponent of women's health and the Affordable Care Act (ACA; a.k.a. "Obamacare") Representative Tom Price (R-GA) to serve as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and health policy consultant Seema Verma as the chief administrator for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  

Rep. Price has a long record of opposing abortion access and other reproductive rights and has voted several times to defund Planned Parenthood. He has also been a leader in the charge to repeal the ACA and supports shifting Medicaid programs to block grant funding structures with less federal oversight and fewer protections for low-income people.

Verma worked alongside Vice President-elect Mike Pence as a key architect of Indiana's Medicaid expansion program, which erected barriers to low-income people maintaining coverage, such as requiring enrollees at the poverty line to pay into the program and penalizing missed contributions with lockouts or more restrictive plans lacking benefits like dental coverage.

Rep. Price's leadership of HHS and Verma's of CMS threaten access to lifesaving treatment and could even further curtail the reproductive autonomy of women living with HIV, who are more likely to be low-income and rely on publicly funded coverage options.


Gear Up for 2017; Take Action Now!

The bad news? There are only a few weeks left before the new administration and Congress take power--bringing with them no shortage of nefarious plans to shred the social safety net, roll back or dismantle affordable health care and sexual and reproductive health services, and curtail the civil rights (and perhaps human rights) of vulnerable communities.

The good news? Organized opposition may not change the Trump agenda, but it could definitely stand in the way of achieving the objectives of that agenda. We can learn many lessons from the Tea Party movement--not their principles, but their strategies and tactics. We recommend you take the time to read and share this guide, written by former congressional staffers, which contains a wealth of tips and tactics for making your congresspeople pay attention.

Resistance will require a lot of effort and organization over a long period of time; however, there is no need to wait. You can start acting now!

December 19, there will be rallies at every state capitol in the U.S. If you live in or close to your state capital, try to attend--and bring some friends! Find yours here.

January 21 is the Women's March on Washington. Are you going? If so, RSVP here so we can connect and organize before and at the March! Can't make it to D.C.? There will be analogous Women's Marches happening in many cities around the country the same day! If you are on Facebook, try searching for "Women's March" and find one near you.

AIDSWatch 2017 - Register Now!
AIDSWatch, presented by our friends at The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, is the nation's largest annual constituent-based national HIV advocacy event, bringing together hundreds of people living with HIV and their allies to meet with Members of Congress and to educate them about the important issues at stake for people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States as well as those affected by and/or vulnerable to HIV. PWN-USA will be there in full force--please join us!


AIDSWatch 2017 will take place March 27 - 28, 2017.

Registration Options:

Early Advocate - $20 - until 3/11/17!
Regular Registration - $40 from 3/12/17 - 3/21/17

Get an inside look at the AIDSWatch experience here.

Happy holidays from our PWN-USA family to yours! 
We will see you next year!
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