Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness
Center Receives $180,000 Grant from Ford Foundation to Combat
HIV/AIDS Stigma
(San Francisco, February 20 2004)
Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center (A&PI Wellness
Center) has received an $180,000, 18-month grant through the
HIV/AIDS Anti-Stigma Initiative, one of only five such grants
awarded nationwide. Managed by the Academy for Educational
Development (AED) Center on AIDS and Community Health, the
Initiative is funded by the Ford Foundation and is one of
the largest grants ever awarded to address HIV/AIDS stigma
in the United States.
With this funding, A&PI Wellness Center will develop
an anti-stigma campaign targeting monolingual Chinese and
Vietnamese people in the San Francisco Bay Area. The campaign
will include public service announcements, radio and television
talk show appearances, editorial coverage, advertisements,
and video documentaries featuring local Chinese and Vietnamese
community leaders who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender;
queer; living with HIV; or family members.
“For a long time, we’ve come up against the intersecting
stigmas around being immigrant, gay, and/or living with HIV/AIDS
in A&PI communities,” said John Manzon-Santos, A&PI
Wellness Center executive director. “We’ll use
the opportunity provided by Ford Foundation funding to address
stigma head on.”
A&PI Wellness Center will put together a Community Advisory
Board to work closely with staff and other volunteers recruited
to participate in the anti-stigma campaign. For information
about participating or other campaign details, contact Mitchell
Friedman, APR, at mitchell@apiwellness.org
or 415.292.3420 x515.
A&PI Wellness Center educates, supports, empowers, and
advocates for Asian and Pacific Islander (A&PI) communities,
particularly A&PIs living with or at-risk for HIV/AIDS.
Founded in 1987 as a grassroots response to the HIV/AIDS crisis
in communities of color, it is the oldest nonprofit organization
in North America targeting A&PI communities around sexual
health and HIV/AIDS services. A&PI Wellness Center is
based in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood and
operates an office in downtown Oakland; provides services
regionally, statewide, and nationally; and maintains linkages
with non-governmental organizations throughout Asia and the
Pacific.
The other organizations receiving HIV/AIDS Anti-Stigma grants
from AED are African Services Committee in New York; Bienestar
Human Services, Inc. in Los Angeles; South Carolina African
American HIV/AIDS Council in Columbia, SC; and Us Helping
Us in Washington, DC.
AED is one of the world’s foremost nonprofit human
and social development organizations. Based in Washington,
DC, AED operates 250 programs to help individuals and communities
improve their education, health, environment, and economic
opportunities in more than 80 countries and all 50 U.S. states.
See www.aed.org for information.
For more information contact:
Mitchell Friedman, APR
415-292-3420 x515
mitchell@apiwellness.org
Back to Top
|
