AIDS Movement Building
In the first three years of CHAMP, the Power Grid Project launched a new, independent movement focused on HIV/AIDS in the US as a social justice issue.
Through these efforts, CHAMP succeeded in:
• Deepening collaboration between AIDS activists focusing on the U.S. and global epidemics
• Identifying areas of common concern in HIV treatment activism and HIV prevention organizing
• Providing technical assistance and mentoring to community organizations seeking greater engagement in
advocacy, organizers living with HIV and young leaders
• Bridging campaigns on HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, health care access and criminal justice issues
A Roadmap to End AIDS: CHAMP trains leaders at the Campaign to End AIDS
Kick-off & Youth Action institute; Hits the road in September for 1500-mile caravan.
The Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA,) is a nationwide effort asserting that our current knowledge on HIV prevention and treatment could bring the epidemic under control, if done to scale. The Campaign is sponsoring ten caravans through every state this fall converging for five days of protest and events in Washington DC.
As one of the founding partners in C2EA, CHAMP is leading efforts to train and mobilize a new generation of activists across the country -- and putting our Executive Director behind the wheel of a 31-foot RV traveling through 11 states to end AIDS!
For the C2EA Kickoff at AIDSWatch in May, CHAMP Academy produced a comprehensive training kit and coordinated 19 training sessions over three days, helping people with HIV and other activists hone their skills as community organizers, media spokespeople, and policy strategists. Then, as 5000 people joined in a powerful march to the White House, CHAMP coordinated interviews with residents of 13 primarily rural states with their hometown media.
The following month, CHAMP Field Organizer Sonny Suchdev, Board Chair Walt Senterfitt, and Executive Director Julie Davids traveled to Fort Collins, CO for the Youth ACTION Institute (YAI), in collaboration with the Youth Caucus of C2EA.
Working with a diverse group of over 100 leaders aged 14-26, of whom one-third are living with HIV, the YAI was an inspiring whirlwind of four days of workshops, speak-outs, dialogue and debate. CHAMP led panels on the history of the AIDS movement, organizing in communities of color, tools for overcoming oppression that can tear apart our unity against AIDS, and methods of mobilizing through schools and non-profit organizations. We also learned TONS of information on what's going on in the frontlines of youth-led activism, from vanguard condom distribution in Mississippi high schools to Latino/a transgender justice struggles in the Castro in San Francisco.
Throughout the summer, we're heading up the planning for the Nor'Easter Caravan. Sonny is serving as the field organizer and Julie is the coordinator and RV driver for this ambitious trek, which will include over 20 local events in nine days over 1500 miles, traveling from September 30 till we hit DC on October 7.
In July, CHAMP's Power Grid for AIDS Movement Building brought together an in-person meeting for leaders from Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania to plan our route and activities through our eight states. Out of this meeting we now have an action-packed caravan that will include interfaith prayer breakfasts, state capitol speakouts, politically-charged concerts, youth-run mock legislative sessions and more, against a backdrop of fiery autumn leaves and the growing movement to end AIDS.
For more about the Nor'easter, see ww.noreaster.endaidsnow.org To learn more about our work with the C2EA, or to reserve your spot on the RV, contact Sonny at sonny@champnetwork.org or 212-966-0466 x 1305.
TOWN MEETING • NOVEMBER 6, 2004 • NYC
REPORT BACK: THE ELECTION AND THE EPIDEMIC:
TURNING OUR FRUSTRATION INTO POWER TO CHANGE AIDS POLICIES
Click here to download report
80 people gathered just four days after the election to share information and strategize on HIV/AIDS issues, in a town meeting sponsored by CHAMP and AIDSVote.
Participants came from four different states, every borough in New York, and represented a wide range of community, HIV/AIDS and religious groups. Our participants included many young leaders and people living with HIV, and our conversations were spirited, productive and a positive start to combating the challenges ahead. 
Guest speakers were: Mark McLaurin, GMHC;
Robert Cordero, Housing Works;
Jennifer Flynn, NYCAHN;
Asia Russell, Health GAP; and
Keynote Speaker Esther Kaplan, author of "With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House"
Co-Sponsored by: Adolescent AIDS Program (Montefiore), CitiWide Harm Reduction, Columbia Global Justice, Housing Works, New York AIDS Coalition (NYAC), New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN), NY Student AIDS Initiative, Partnership for Family Health: Northern Manhattan
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GENERATIONS OF CHAMPions • PROFILES OF ACTIVISTS
Interviews by Kevin Chinzhe Lo
Click here to DOWNLOAD interviews
CHAMP is committed to intergenerational organizing, sharing our skills and experiences as activists of all ages. These two profiles will introduce you to two people of different generations who are building our PowerGrid:
Walt Senterfitt, one of CHAMP's beloved Board Co-Chairs, started his career as an activist growing up in the segregated South. In his 40 years of activism, Senterfitt has been a community organizer, high school teacher, nurse, health care union organizer and pursued a graduate degree in epidemiology in his mid-40's. He currently works for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and is a Board member of Being Alive in Los Angeles. 
Elizabeth Lindsey is an activist and volunteer for CHAMP and ACT UP Philadelphia, and is a full-time employee of Philadelphia's Maternity Care Coalition. She began her career as an activist organizing a caravan tour for the Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty. Elizabeth also organized queer and black students at her alma mater, Swarthmore College.
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People living with HIV and their families face an intersection of complex issues. Many of the challenges of people with HIV and those at risk of infection in the United States are matters of basic human rights, shaped by the political economies of race, class, gender, sexuality and national borders in the era of globalization.
CHAMP’s Power Grid Project reaches beyond the self-identified “AIDS Community” to link experienced and emerging leaders across communities, sectors and issues that affect the lives of people living with, or at risk of, HIV infection. We are building power within and across movements for fundamental social change that confronts the root causes of the AIDS epidemic in the US and worldwide.
NATIONAL ORGANIZING
In our national efforts, CHAMP is bridging AIDS movement organizations with allied struggles affecting our constituents. CHAMP’s Executive Director serves as co-chair of the Federal AIDS Policy Partnership (FAPP) as well as its Community Mobilization Working Group. In recent FAPP gatherings, we presented a panel on harm reduction and syringe exchange advocacy and led strategic discussions on increasing collaboration between grassroots and policy groups.
Serving on the founding steering committee of the AIDS Treatment Activist Coalition (ATAC), CHAMP provided initial supervision for the coalition’s coordinator and founded their Prison Health Working Group. We continue to serve as primary coordinators for the working group.
CHAMP has worked closely with the Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC), developing a toolkit to connect college activists with advocacy campaigns on domestic HIV/AIDS issues complimenting the Campaign’s strong global solidarity efforts. We have also provided media skills training and strategic collaboration with their policy staff and members, and are honored to host two SGAC leaders as summer fellows in community organizing and civic participation.
ELECTION 2004
As a sponsor of AIDSVote, CHAMP is providing trainings for the staff and clients of non-profit organizations to improve their capacity to participate in non-partisan electoral activities. In addition, we are linking AIDS organizations in swing states to get-out-the-vote efforts in their communities.
CHAMP staff facilitated planning calls, wrote press materials and provided a comprehensive website for the May 20 “Wake Up, Time’s Up” Mobilization in Washington, DC, in which 1000 people marched past the Republican and Democratic Party headquarters and 100 were arrested at the Capitol.
As an allied organization of the Still We Rise Coalition, CHAMP assisted in the march and rally on August 30, 2004 -- the opening day of the Republican National Convention -- around issues of HIV/AIDS, health, housing, welfare, immigration and criminal justice issues affecting the lives of low-income New Yorkers.
