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In Focus #7: Spring 1999Dear Friends of Project InformI am happy to have this opportunity to introduce myself to you as Project Inform’s new Executive Director. After fourteen years of HIV-related work, I feel extraordinarily fortunate to now work at Project Inform, an organization I deep respected. I have always viewed Project Inform as doing the most to actually save people’s lives and as being crystal-clear about its mission to end this epidemic as quickly as possible. Throughout the years, I have referred hundreds of clients and friends to Project Inform for information and support. I first became involved with HIV work in 1985, as a social worker at AIDS Project Los Angeles. I have worked in the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, and Baltimore in HIV social services, mental health services, prevention education, public policy advocacy, and community organizing. For the past six years, I worked at a community health center in Fremont, CA, managing its comprehensive HIV program and, subsequently, its clinic. I have been very involved with HIV in religious communities; I was a founding Board member of the AIDS National Interfaith Network. I have been involved with AIDS activism for many years and served on the Ryan White Planning Council in Oakland. Finally, I have spoken and written from my perspective as a psychotherapist, most recently focusing on psychological issues faced by people living long-term with HIV. Building on the excellent track record Project Inform has already established under the powerful leadership of outgoing Executive Director Annette Brands and the continuing visionary leadership of Founding Director Martin Delaney, I am looking ahead to new ways for us to fulfill our mission of providing vital HIV treatment information to all people living with HIV. I am actively pursuing initiatives to more fully utilize our hotline, our publications, our training expertise, and all our other resources to bring Project Inform’s message of information, advocacy, and hope to all of our diverse communities. My first major trip as Executive Director was to attend the National Conference on African Americans and AIDS in Washington DC. Hundreds of us gathered for a serious and purposeful look at the crisis wrought by the disproportionate and growing impact of HIV on the African American community. We face other challenges as well, such as the need to respond internationally to urgent needs for treatment access, information, and advocacy. We also have the serious challenge of combating the dangerous misperception that this epidemic is “over.” As Sandra Thurman, Director of the White House Office on AIDS Policy, recently said, “We’re not at the beginning of the end of AIDS; we’re at the end of the beginning.” May the end come as soon as possible, but for those of us who may feel weary but still know well that we have much more work to do, let us renew our commitment to doing it. I am honored to work in partnership with a passionately dedicated Board of Directors, a brilliant and talented staff, and all of you in the Project Inform family. I look forward to great strides forward in our efforts, and to the day when those efforts are no longer necessary. Sincerely, Avi Rose, LCSW Academy of Friends GalaProject Inform is tremendously grateful to have been selected as one of the beneficiaries of the Academy of Friends’ 19th Annual Oscar Night Gala Event. It is one of San Francisco’s biggest parties of the year, celebrating the Oscars while raising AIDS awareness. With support of countless corporate underwriters and many top Bay Area restaurants, the Gala on March 21 included food, dancing, live entertainment and a simulcast of the LA awards. We greatly appreciate the continuing support of Academy of Friends, its volunteers and donors. New Board of Directors and StaffProject Inform is pleased to announce two new members to its Board of Directors. Sheila Hall, a past volunteer on Project Inform’s National HIV/AIDS Treatment Hotline, is a benefits counselor at Marin AIDS Project. Lonnie Payne, a person living with HIV, is a retired Marketing/Sales Manager at AT&T and current member of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Board of Directors. We are also delighted to welcome two new staff members: Derrick Mapp, Treatment Education Coordinator, and Brian Byrdsong, Manager of Individual Fundraising. Derrick comes from the Brooklyn AIDS Task Force in Brooklyn, NY where he was a Substance Use Specialist and facilitated a support group for men who have sex with men. Brian has been Manager of Special Projects at United Way of Santa Clara County and is a volunteer at ARIS, San Jose. Training Treatment Advocates and Case ManagersThe HIV Treatment Education Certification Project, a collaboration between Project Inform and Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center, has successfully completed its first year. Funded through a grant from the City of San Francisco, the project is a three-day training designed to educate case managers, treatment advocates and peer advocates on the basics of HIV disease, treatments and strategies. To date it has trained more than 163 people in the Bay Area with almost 90% of them becoming certified. Certification requires making a grade of 90% or better on the post-tests. Its success has been recognized by the City of San Francisco, and notice was received in February that it has been funded again for a second year. Hotline AssessmentThe Treatment Information Assessment Project (TIAP), funded by a grant from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, has been completed and a report summarizing the results is now available. Its purpose was to discover if questions to the Hotline differed based on gender, geography, income and HIV status, and what conclusions could be made to improve the delivery of pertinent treatment information. The TIAP report is available to those interested. To receive a copy, call or email David Evans with your name, organizational affiliation, address and phone number at 415-558-8669 x215 or devans@projectinform.org. Riders Sought for the Fifth Annual Ron Wilmot Bike Ride!Join dozens of other bicyclists on Saturday, May 8, 1999 for a fun-filled seven-mile ride through Golden Gate Park—for fun, for health and to support a great cause. The Bike Ride was started five years ago by Ron Wilmot to raise critically needed funds for Project Inform’s treatment and advocacy programs. Last year, with the help of community volunteers and generous contributors, 60 riders raised more than $60,000. With your help, the fifth annual Ron Wilmot Bike Ride can raise even more for Project Inform. For riders who raise $500, $1,000 or $2,000+, there will be terrific prizes including dinners at local restaurants, accommodations at a Bay Area destination and other prizes, including a trip for two to Jamaica as the Grand Prize. Project Inform is grateful to American Airlines, Ashbury Images, Castro Lions Club, Clif Bar, GAP, MECCA, Negril Tree House Resort, Positive Pedalers, San Francisco Frontiers Newsmagazine, Sonoma Mission Inn, Start to Finish, Total Communications, VooDoo Cycles, wOrldware, and Zephyr Real Estate for this year’s generous sponsorship. We encourage riders of all abilities and in particular, people living with HIV, to participate. You can register as a rider by contacting Julie Doherty at 415-558-8669 x223 or by visiting the Ron Wilmot page of Project Inform’s website. Entertaining LizaProject Inform has been selected as a beneficiary of an event in Los Angeles honoring Liza Minelli. The event will take place on June 7, 1999 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Information on Entertaining Liza can be received by calling 415-558-8669 x209. The So Long, Annette and Welcome, Avi PartyProject Inform’s dance party and fundraiser to bid farewell to Annette Brands for her five years of dedicated leadership and to welcome Avi Rose as the new Executive Director was a fabulous success, raising over $15,000. More than 130 people attended the fun-filled celebration on February 23. They had a great time mingling, dancing, gnoshing on fabulous food provided by Tom O’Connor and saying their hellos and goodbyes. The Board of Directors formally said goodbye to Annette and presented her with a beautiful surfboard. They formally welcomed Avi, who joined us in January and brings with him more than 14 years of experience with HIV service and activism. Policy UpdateProject Inform’s public policy department continues to work diligently on issues of access to treatment and healthcare, sending out Alerts to members of the Project Inform’s Treatment Action Network and collaborating with other organizations. This year, Congress will consider many legislative and budget issues that will affect the ability of people living with HIV/AIDS to obtain or keep adequate health care and treatment for HIV disease. Federal Budget Funding Important ProgramsThe annual federal budget will fund many programs delivering care, housing, and prevention education as well as supporting research at the National Institutes of Health. The Work Incentives Improvement Act would allow people with disabilities to either enter or return to work and retain health care benefits. The Early HIV Treatment Act would expand Medicaid coverage to include asymptomatic, HIV-positive, low-income individuals. There will likely be several pieces of “Patients’ Bill of Rights” legislation, intended to help people insured through managed care programs. Congress will also review bills related to HIV vaccine development, needle exchange funding, and HIV prevention and education. The most important voice in all of these debates should be people living with HIV/AIDS and their advocates. Join us in these efforts and help influence policies that affect you. Please contact Treatment Action Network at 415-558-8669 or at tan@projectinform.org. Project Inform’s Annual Volunteer Appreciation DinnerThe 1999 recipient of the Bill Bradley Exemplary Volunteer Award will be announced at the upcoming Project Inform Annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. This fun-filled fabulous event will honor and thank all its volunteers and interns for their incredible work and support they gave Project Inform throughout 1998. The dinner will be held Wednesday, May 12 from 6–10pm in San Francisco. For more information, contact Mark Owens at 415-558-8669 x218, or email him at mowens@projectinform.org. Letter from a Project Inform ConstituentAs a case manager providing psychosocial and practical support to people living with HIV disease, I want to express my appreciation for the rigorous and very practical TECP training I attended last week. Like many of my colleagues in the field, I do not have a strong science background. In fact, I have a considerable distrust of scientific thinking and medical institutions in general. TECP, more than any HIV-related training I’ve attended in the past seven years, helped me connect with the scientific and medical knowledge I need to serve my clients better. I’d always known intellectually that HIV+ people and their care providers should understand how the immune system works, how HIV causes disease, and what the functions and limitations of antiretroviral therapy are. Since taking the TECP training, I now understand much better why we need to understand these things. And my ability to transmit this knowledge to my clients has been greatly enhanced. I extend my thanks to Project Inform for the enduring high quality of your services. Drew Joseph, MA Thank you for these recent gifts in memory of …Listing reflects memorial gifts received for Project Inform from October 21, 1998 to March 15, 1999.
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PAST ISSUES#7 Spring 1999 |
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Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 415-558-8669 |
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