The HIV Prevention
Justice Alliance
is
a national network
of over 70 groups building a unified,
effective movement for HIV prevention
in the United States.
The Board and staff of the Community HIV/AIDS
Mobilization Project (CHAMP) have made the difficult decision to end
CHAMP’s operations as an independent non-profit and to shift our
existing active networks—the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance (HIV PJA)
and Project UNSHACKLE—to other institutional homes.
The reasons for this decision
are many and varied, and reflect the challenges faced by many small
grassroots organizations working for social justice.
Over the last seven years,
CHAMP has made a significant impact on the framing of HIV prevention in
the US and has pursued the goal of building a movement that bridges HIV
prevention and other struggles for economic, social and racial justice.
However, in the process, we were not able to build a sustainable
organization in the current economic climate that could overcome the
challenges of balancing movement building and leadership development
with organizational administration and operations.
We are enormously proud of
CHAMP’s record of pushing for progressive HIV/AIDS policies that address
the demands of communities most affected by the human rights abuses and
structural inequalities in our country that continue to fuel the
epidemic.
·With
allies including thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS and
grassroots community advocates, we fought for an unprecedented National
HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) that, however imperfect and unfinished,
acknowledges social drivers of the epidemic and demands coordinated
plans and accountability across federal agencies.
·We
fought alongside community organizations around the country for access
to condoms in jails and schools, to strip abstinence-only funding from
state budgets, draw together students and people with HIV to fight for
syringe exchange, and build the power of women to challenge sentencing
rules that marginalize sex workers.
·We
demanded significant changes to “business as usual” at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including drastic changes to
burdensome data collection mandates for providers, broader discussion of
social drivers and structural interventions in the epidemic, and an
expanded commitment to confronting the criminalization of HIV.
·We
founded a national network, Project UNSHACKLE, dedicated to the
intersection of HIV and imprisonment, linking over 1000 formerly
imprisoned leaders and allies in strategic dialogue and action.
·Through
the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance and other efforts, we helped a new
generation of AIDS activists of all ages, including many people living
with HIV/AIDS, find their voice in struggles for HIV prevention justice
·We
marshaled AIDS community resources for allied campaigns in LGBTQ
liberation, racial justice, women’s empowerment and human rights.
·And
we built the CHAMP Network of nearly 12,000 people across the United
States – like you –who are committed to HIV prevention justice and who
have taken action on issues as diverse as the AIDS Drug Assistance
Program (ADAP) crisis, global HIV/AIDS funding, and the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) for LGBT work equity.
In the coming months, we will
invite you to actively participate as we document these and other
battles, along with successes, failures and major unsolved problems,
with and for our supporters and members. We hope this record of our
achievements and the lessons we have learned will serve as a tool for
current and future activists who have and will take up the cause of HIV
prevention justice.
While this marks an end to
CHAMP as we have known and loved it for the last seven years, it also
marks the beginning of a new phase in the development of the two
networks that CHAMP carefully built and fostered.
The CHAMP Board and the broader
HIV/AIDS community have recognized the critical importance of the HIV
Prevention Justice Alliance (HIV PJA) and Project UNSHACKLE in pushing
the HIV prevention justice vision forward, and we have already
identified two organizations that are eager to provide them with the
institutional support necessary to further their work.
The HIV PJA will be housed by
one of its co-founding organizations, AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC).
Founded by community activists and physicians in 1985, the AIDS
Foundation of Chicago
(AFC) is a catalyst for local,
national, and international action on HIV/AIDS. In 2007, AFC was a key
partner in CHAMP’s HIV Prevention Justice Mobilization. One year later,
AFC, CHAMP and SisterLove co-founded the HIV PJA as a coalition of
organizations and individuals advocating for effective and just HIV
prevention policies in the United States. Julie Davids will continue to
coordinate the HIV PJA as a decentralized network under the auspices of
AFC.
Project UNSHACKLE will continue
as a project of the New York City AIDS Housing Network/Voices of
Community Activists and Leaders (NYCAHN/VOCAL), a powerful model of
grassroots community organizing and PWA leadership development. NYCAHN/VOCAL was CHAMP’s fiscal sponsor for our first several years, and throughout CHAMP’s existence, many
NYCAHN/VOCAL members and staff have been involved as staff, members and
Board members. Project UNSHACKLE fits well into their current work on
healthcare in jails and prisons, and in the experiences of many of their
members with imprisonment, probation, parole and re-entry.
The Board would also like to
recognize the enduring contribution of two individual CHAMP leaders in
particular—Julie Davids, CHAMP’S visionary founder and current Director,
and Waheedah Shabazz-El, CHAMP’s long-term, volunteer Community
Organizer/Trainer and powerful organizer on behalf of women and all
people living with HIV. Julie has contributed inspirational leadership
not only to CHAMP, but to the struggle against the epidemic in this
country. We are very pleased that she plans to continue
her role as a leader in the HIV PJA in its new home. Waheedah began as a
CHAMP member, took on an increasing variety of organizing and
leadership tasks and is the newest member of the CHAMP Board of
Directors, helping to shape the concrete future of the prevention
justice vision.
Board members Hadiyah Charles
and Charles Long have also taken leadership in this transition and
voiced their determination to sustain the vision and history of CHAMP
through both local and national organizing. In addition, we thank board member and former co-chair Ben Maulbeck for his wise counsel throughout this difficult process. As
a collective, the CHAMP Board is committed to do all that we can to
support the transition of these and other leaders within CHAMP to new
roles and homes.
Finally, we reach out with much
respect and appreciation to the broad, diverse CHAMP Network across the
United States. Together, we have reframed how HIV prevention is
understood in this country. We have learned continuously from all of you
and hope that we will be able to maintain the platforms through which
we educate, agitate, inspire each other and amplify our voices. We are
enormously grateful and we look forward to being in touch about the
future of the HIV PJA and Project UNSHACKLE.
Sincerely,
Julia Greenberg and Walt Senterfitt, Board Co-Chairs
Prevention Justice in Action:
CHAMP Featured in New Documentary on History of Safer Sex
Go here to find out how to screen Sex in an Epidemic
CDC CAVES, WILL COMBAT CRIMINALIZATION OF HIV
Thanks
so much to all of you who endorsed the HIV
Prevention Justice Alliance / Project UNSHACKLE letter to CDC.
You
joined a forceful call to insist that
CDC follows through on its plan to confront the criminalization of HIV - AND WE HAVE WON!
"While
these activities represent a concrete
beginning, we realize there is much to be done to address the need for a
public health, rather than punitive perspective to drive how people
living with HIV/AIDS are approached in the United States. We all must
continue to be forward thinking in this endeavor, and collectively we
will make a broader impact. We at CDC appreciate the work
orgarrizations such as yours do in the communities affected by this
disease."
We
couldn't agree more. And
we invite you to share your thoughts below at www.preventionjustice.org -- or you can contact us jdavids [at] champnetwork [dot] org or call Julie Davids at 212-937-7955 x70. We'll
be sure to pass on the information to CDC.