NMAC Honors HIV Vaccine Awareness Day
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Circe J. Gray Le Compte,
Director of Communications
Telephone: (202) 483-NMAC (6622) ext. 309; (202) 352-7240
NMAC Honors HIV Vaccine Awareness Day
NVHREI National Partner Hopes to Raise HIV Vaccine Awareness through
Innovative Community Liaison Program
May 18th,
2009 – Washington, DC – The
National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) honors the HIV Vaccine Awareness Day (HVAD),
led by the National Institutes for Allergies and Infectious Diseases
(NIAID), on Monday, May 18th. HVAD recognizes and thanks volunteers,
health professionals, scientist and community members that are working towards
finding a safe and effective HIV Vaccine.
“I have worked on the
frontlines of the AIDS epidemic for nearly two decades,” says Paul A. Kawata,
NMAC’s Executive Director. “An HIV vaccine is the best long-term hope to
controlling – and one day ending – the worldwide AIDS pandemic.”
Unfortunately, HIV vaccine development has been challenging, most notably due
to fears and stigmas associated with AIDS and the HIV vaccine research process.
Without the support of groups hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic, however – most
notably African Americans and Latinos – creating an HIV vaccine that works for
everyone will be next to impossible.
As a national partner of the NIAID HIV Vaccine
Education Initiative (NHVREI), NMAC has been helping to foster community
involvement in the HIV vaccine research process. A unique program that brings
together nine national partners and four community partners from across the U.S., NHVREI engages communities,
national and local organizations to increase knowledge about, support for, and
willingness to participate in HIV vaccine research.
Since 2008, NMAC launched a broad spectrum of social marketing
and outreach activities to educate its constituents about the safety and efficacy
of HIV vaccine research and the need to support HIV vaccine research activities.
This year, the agency introduced a NHVREI Community Liaison
Program, which trains community leaders to serve as peer educators.
NMAC Program Manager, Albert Hannas, who heads the
initiative, says, “We work under idea of ‘each one teach one.’ The liaisons not
only provide their family and communities HIV vaccine information, they train
them to be peer educators themselves. Similar public health campaigns to
educate people about HIV and AIDS have proven to be quite effective in helping
to dispel myths and misconceptions, and change behavior.”
This program will lead to a significant increase in
awareness, knowledge, and support for HIV vaccine research among African Americans
and Latinos, which have been disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS since the
epidemic began. In addition, NMAC encourages everyone to learn more about HIV
vaccines by visiting its HIV Vaccine Awareness Day page,
which features an online tutorial, online resources and information about
getting involved.
In addition,
visit the official NVHREI page at www.bethegeneration.org for information,
resources and online tools, as well as details about local HVAD events
nationwide and in your community.
About NMAC
The National Minority AIDS
Council (NMAC) has advanced its mission, “to develop leadership within
communities of color to address the challenges of HIV/AIDS” since 1987 through
individualized capacity building assistance, technical assistance trainings,
public policy education programs; national and regional conferences; treatment
and research education programs; online and printed resource materials; and a
website: www.nmac.org.
The agency also serves as a membership association for its constituents – AIDS
service organizations and minority faith- and community-based organizations
delivering HIV/AIDS services in communities of color – and advocates on their
behalf in Washington, DC.
NMAC's advocacy efforts are funded through private funders and donors only. For
more information, please contact NMAC directly at (202) 483-NMAC (6622) or communications@nmac.org.
You may find us online at www.nmac,org, as well as on Facebook.com,
Wikipedia.com, Twitter.com, MyPhotoAlbum.com and YouTube.com.
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