Category: Blogs

Hmm…“Happy” doesn’t really feel like the right word there. How about: the World has made some amazing progress in fighting AIDS, but on this Day in 2015 there’s still so much more work to be done! That feels more accurate.

There have been remarkable achievements in combating HIV/AIDS in the past 15 years — the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 6 to enroll 15 million people on life-saving HIV treatment by the end of 2015 was met nine months ahead of the deadline, new HIV infections have fallen by 35%, and AIDS-related deaths globally have fallen by 41%. However, last year alone approximately two million people became newly infected with HIV, and 1.2 million people died from HIV-related causes globally.

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The most powerful way to use empathy is as a tool to better understand the people we work with, the people we interact with, and the people we are trying to serve.

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This goes along with the belief that when organizations have the technical knowledge, personnel and funding to run effectively, they can make a lasting impact in their communities.

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9:00am, Monday morning. As I start down the red dirt path to my office, eyes to the ground in my daily effort to keep my feet dust-free, the twinkling of women’s laughter drifts through the banana trees to my ears.

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Violence against health care facilities and health workers is one of the most crucial yet overlooked humanitarian — and global health — issues, today.

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As the Advocacy and Policy Associate for Housing Works, I had the opportunity to attend the 8th Annual North American Housing and HIV Research Summit from September 14–16 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C. The summit was sponsored by organizations such as the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN), the National AIDS Housing Coalition (NAHC), Housing Works, the MAC AIDS Fund, and REACH 2.0, among others.

It was an exciting summit, where individuals from all over the United States and Canada shared research, ideas, and stories related to the social drivers that impact HIV. Plenty of evidence shows that housing is a form of HIV prevention. In fact, during the summit, we watched a video featuring the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Julián Castro, who stressed, “The first step to better health is having a roof over your head.” Having a stable place to live provides comfort, safety, and the opportunity to focus on other important health issues. But now that we know this, what’s next?

Throughout the event, I jotted down notes, trying to grasp the bigger picture and make connections between research, practice, policy, and advocacy. While there are complex layers to the AIDS epidemic, I came up with 6 takeaways and action items that I feel must be addressed in order to accomplish the goal of ending AIDS in the United States.

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For the past 4 years, October 11th has been more than just a day to me. It has been a commemoration, a celebration, and a reminder that half of the world is not yet equal.

As a girl, I personally experienced a number of health issues — Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, an eating disorder, clinical depression. Because I understand what it means to hit rock bottom mentally, physically, and emotionally, I helped lead a girl’s empowerment nonprofit, Healthy Girls Save the World, during college. I strived to be a healthy role model so that the girls understood that their beauty stems from strength, intelligence, and self-care, not weight and make-up.

But I was fortunate to have the resources, love, and capacity to better my health. As I learn more about the world, I am consistently met with the fact that is not true for all girls. Whether relegated to housework, barred from receiving an education, forced into early child marriage, or taught that they cannot excel in STEM fields, girls all over the world face unique challenges to leading daily lives.

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Global Health Corps is a fellowship program that aims to create the next generation of global health leaders. The program model pairs two fellows — one national and one international — within a placement organization and gives them tools and supports them to develop into confident professionals. While certain things during our fellowship were beyond our control, we knew there was one thing we could always count on: each other.

Over the past year, we took a selfie together every day we were together — usually in the office, but as our project gained momentum, we got more creative, snapping photos during retreats, on co-fellow date nights and even during Skype chats.

We love our selfie collection because it illustrates the evolution of our relationship from strangers to steadfast supporters of one another, and capture so many memories from this past year, even if they just barely capture both our faces in the same frame.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but we didn’t feel like it was right to wrap up this year without getting in one thousand words or less about our selfie project.

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