Commemorating National Women & Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

Since the earliest days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Black women have been infected and affected disproportionately. Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV/AIDS today, almost 30 percent are women. And 57 percent of new infections among women occur among Black women.

As we begin to discuss ending the epidemic, it is extremely important that we talk about Black women and girls because we have to make sure that no one gets left behind. We need to create spaces for all of the impacted populations to have robust conversations about HIV and AIDS. And the messenger matters, particularly when we're talking about Black women and girls.

So we're thrilled this week to provide a platform that will allow a number of Black women to offer their personal and professional perspectives what it will take to end HIV and AIDS. We will use this format, where we focus on one important topic and invite a handful of thought leaders to share their ideas on it, several times this year. And we can think of no better place or way to start the discussion than to have a FUBU conversation for Black women, about black women and by black women. This week's contributors are:

Dazon Dixon Diallo, the visionary founder, president and CEO of SisterLove, the Atlanta-based reproductive-justice organization for women that focuses on HIV/AIDS and that works internationally.

Amanda Lugg, the director of advocacy for the African Services Committee, a non-profit organization that improves the health and self-sufficiency of the African community in New York City and beyond.

Vanessa Johnson, J.D., the owner of Just Cause Consulting, and whose 20 years of experience creating leadership-development-training programs for PLWHA, includes being the former executive vice president of the National Association of People With AIDS (NAPWA).

Nancy Asha Molock, a retired schoolteacher and activist who publicly disclosed her HIV-positive status in the Philadelphia Daily News last year on National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

Del'Rosa Winston, the Bridge Leadership Program associate, who also coordinates the Positive Women's Leadership Program for SisterLove.

We welcome their perspectives and know that you will find them enlightening.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill