Women & AIDS Fund Convening Nov 3-5, 2007

Palm Springs is weird. I stayed on a little golf oasis complete with pool & hot tub... i guess local food would be cactus... i dunno, didn't leave the resort i was at once in the three days i was there. here's the resort i stayed at:
http://www.doralpalmsprings.com/

yeah, the hot tub was nice but would have been ever so much sweeter with my honey.

anyway, what i was there for was a Women & AIDS Fund convening of grantees before USCA (the U.S Conference on AIDS). This is an INCREDIBLE group of women's organizations from around the U.S. funded by the awesome Ms. Foundation, which has been supporting community-based organizations - orgs that are by women for women, working to address issues around women & HIV in their communities. at the beginning of our two-day meeting, we began with a revealing exercise where Jacqui Coleman (founder of Vision Que! and all around kickass facilitator queen) had us form a map of the U.S repping our cities/states.

let me tell you ~ most of us were clustered in NY and CA. there were a handful of folks from assorted other states - colorado, louisiana, kansas city, minnesota, seattle -- but there was a GIANT GAP in the middle of the country. esp the south, where we now know the greatest crisis is happening and folks are still dying on the ADAP waiting list, waiting for access to medications, absolutely outrageous in this land of excess and pyramid economy. that pyramid which gets narrower at the top every moment.

but these organizations are revolutionary, innovative. the way they've been able to work with women living with HIV in their communities is by grounding, keepin it real, staying rooted. being the women, staying accountable to the women, developing peer-based programs, BY HIV-positive women, FOR HIV-positive women. an example of innovation that's made an org work: the LightHouse Project in CO supports positive women all over the state. some of these women live in hecka rural areas and it would require hours of driving for them to show up at a support group. so they have women call in to the group and put em on the phone with the ladies in the room. they have one woman who's a truck driver, usually on the road, and she calls in every group from wherever she is - is the first one on group, and the last one off.

it takes a daily commitment from each of us to make our work accessible.

yeah women warriors!

for more on the Ms. Foundation, please visit: www.ms.foundation.org