September 28, 2009

New HIV Education Initiative Targets Black Colleges and Universities

During the 39th Annual Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Legislative Conference on September 25, the National Minority AIDS Council announced details of its new Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) HIV/AIDS Peer Education Initiative, which will encourage students to get more involved in HIV/AIDS prevention and education efforts on campus and in surrounding communities.

Participating schools include Virginia Union University in Richmond; Howard University in Washington, DC; and Bowie State University in Bowie, Maryland.

The announcement took place at the NMAC-sponsored An Evening Without Politics: A Benefit Reception, an event that brought together corporate leaders, policymakers and HIV community leaders to draw more attention to the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic and the need for a national AIDS strategy.

“We need a national, comprehensive and coordinated strategy to address HIV/AIDS, a plan that requires the same level of accountability and transparency that we demand of other countries when we give them funding to address HIV/AIDS,” said Paul Kawata, executive director of NMAC. “As part of that strategy, we must continue to address socio-economic disparities, such as unemployment, lack of insurance, homelessness, poverty and lack of education, that have helped foster the AIDS epidemic in the U.S., particularly in communities of color.”

NEW! Scroll down to comment on this story.

Previous Comments:

suella, toronto, 2009-10-01 20:29:34
Such education should be extended to many parts of Africa as government leaders dilly daly around this problem. Also, there is widespread denial, ignorance and sceptism. Parents, too lack the guts to educate their kids about HIV/AIDS. Others are simply too conservative to hold such intimate discussions with their children. International bodies in this field should engage directly with leaders and rate them according to efforts they put into implementing such education in their schools.