Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, “ALL OF US” Screening

Last night, ETAH had a wonderful evening celebrating Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (March 10th).  We screened the documentary ALL OF US, by Pureland Pictures, about HIV/AIDS in African-American women.  HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for African American women aged 25 to 34, and the second highest rate of new HIV infection occurs in young people ages 15-24.  For this reason, ETAH joined other organizations across the country in screening ALL OF US, and highlighting this year’s awareness day theme, “Right Here at Home.”

After the film, we had a great discussion and we plan to continue that discussion on this blog.  The following are some questions and comments  the teens had  last night:

“Now I have a better understanding about the struggle and pain HIV can put you through.”

“The movie was great! I learned, don’t have sex without a condom”

“What made you wanna speak 2 us about HIV & AIDS?”

“Can you have sex with someone who has AIDS/HIV without getting it?”

More questions and answers coming soon!

Educating Teens about HIV/AIDS Month-an exciting time for ETAH

March is Educating Teens about HIV/AIDS Month, and March 2008 was wonderful!  We received reports of great activities taking place throughout the Month of March, especially during the Balm in Gilead week of healing for the Black Churches. 

ETAH was pleased to host our first conference on the Economic Impact of HIV/AIDS March 24-26th.  We were pleased to see that many truly embraced our conference theme: “Putting our Future First: Reclaiming our Youth through Community Connections.”  On Tuesday, March 25th we held a concurrent Teen HIV/AIDS Awareness Day which was well attended and much enjoyed by the teens.  Highlights of the conference included:

Monday evening, March 24, 2008: Presentation by Christopher H. Bates, Acting Director for the Department of Health and Human Services’, Office of HIV/AIDS Policy. He encouraged us to continue our effort to involve everyone in prevention education to curtail the impact of HIV/AIDS.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008: Keynote Address by Dr. Calvin Johnson, Secretary of Health, Commonwealth of PA, his special message to the teenagers was well received.  We are pleased that he supports our parent involvement efforts. 

We were also pleased that Ms. Andrea Flynn, MAC AIDS Fund joined us to discussed the corporate role in prevention education, and Dr. Kim Miller, Centers for Disease Control, shared her research on Pre-risk approaches to HIV prevention for Youth.

Wednesday, March 26th, we were joined by an enthusiastic group of young adults from the Youth Empowerment Project and had a moving conference wrap-up session.

Check back for pictures and a chronicle of our trip to Capetown, South Africa with the DIVA foundation!

Are you Aware?

MARCH IS EDUCATING TEENS ABOUT HIV/AIDS MONTH

Educating Teens about HIV/AIDS is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization designed to educate pre-teens, teenagers, and young adults about the deadly impact of the HIV virus and AIDS through collaboration with the greater community.  It also serves to collaborate with the business community and to encourage schools, houses of worship, and community groups to plan programs to educate teens about HIV/AIDS during the month of March and beyond.

We’ve started this blog to reach more people, gain additional support, and to promote our upcoming events.

March 24-March 26th we are holding a conference in Pittsburgh, PA on the Economic Impact of HIV/AIDS  in celebration of the Eighth Annual Educating Teens about HIV/AIDS Month.  The conference theme is “Putting our Future First: Reclaiming our Youth through Community Connections.” 

Please visit our website at, www.educatingteens.org for more information or click on the following link Preliminary Program for the Economic Impact of HIV Conference.