NMAC Stands With Billy Porter

Following is a statement from NMAC Executive Director Paul Kawata on “Pose” star Billy Porter’s disclosure of his HIV status.

“NMAC applauds Billy Porter on his disclosure of his HIV status. At NMAC, we know how much stigma around HIV cripples our ability to end the epidemic. It’s what keeps people from talking with their partners about HIV. It’s what keeps people from protecting themselves because they don’t feel worthy. It’s what keeps people away from doctors, clinics, and testing sites. And it perpetuates feelings of shame and deepens depression and poor self-esteem. As an award-winning actor, the lead of a hit TV show, and a gay man of color, Billy Porter’s disclosure can have a big impact on HIV stigma, particularly in communities of color where it remains a major obstacle.

“We are so happy that this disclosure is bringing him a sense of relief and release of pain and trauma. Billy is an amazing actor, singer, dancer, and now role model for people of color living with or affected by HIV. We look forward to having him as a partner in the fight against HIV.”

NMAC leads with race to urgently fight for health equity and racial justice to end the HIV epidemic in America. Since 1987, NMAC has advanced our mission through a variety of programs and services, including: a public policy education program, national and regional training conferences, a treatment and research program, numerous electronic and print materials, and a website: www.nmac.org. NMAC also serves as an association of AIDS service organizations, providing valuable information to community-based organizations, hospitals, clinics, and other groups assisting individuals and families affected by the HIV epidemic.

I Made A Mistake

I made a mistake in last week’s piece on the Minority AIDS Initiative (MAI). I believe good leadership is owning your mistakes and working to fix it. As you probably know, I am not an epidemiologist. However, NMAC will always follow the data and the science and the data I shared last week did not capture the impact that MAI has by race/ethnicity. Here is the corrected data that I received:

These data (from two CDC reports: Estimated HIV Incidence and Prevalence in the United States) show the disparity between African Americans and Latinx persons compared to White persons. While there is a slight decrease for African Americans and a slight increase among Latinx persons, the trend is essentially flat between 2010 and 2018.

Thank you to Eve Mokotoff, the Director of HIV Counts, for correcting the record.

There were also concerns about the amount of credit I took for NMAC’s role in the development of the MAI. To be clear and fair there were many leaders and organizations involved in the creation of the MAI. While NMAC played an important role, we were not the only ones. I did not mean to dishonor any person or institution.

I’ve been in Washington fighting HIV since the Reagan administration. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and will probably make more. Fighting HIV is a high wire act that is not for the faint of heart. Leaders who worry about making mistakes usually don’t take any risks. For NMAC, it’s not the mistake but the way it gets cleaned up or covered-up.

NMAC is focused on the Minority AIDS Initiative because we believe the Biden—Harris administration is committed to doing something important on race. After Black Lives Matter, there is a racial reckoning coming to America. It is not enough to point out racism. We are at a moment when the White House and Health and Human Services are looking for solutions. But we can only win by telling the truth and cleaning up mistakes
Yours in the struggle,
Paul KawataPaul Kawata

BLOC En Español Comes to Texas

NMAC proudly announces the Building Leaders of Color (BLOC) en español virtual training program for Texas this June 21- 25, 2021 (10am-3PM CST). The main goal of BLOC en español is to increase the meaningful participation of Persons of Color with HIV (PWH) who are prepared to engage in leadership roles and activities related to HIV service delivery in their communities. The training will be facilitated in Spanish.

BLOC en español is designed in Spanish language to provide language justice and cultural humility to the Latinx community. The program also utilizes NMAC’s new learning management system (the HIV-E virtual platform) and a tutorial prior will be provided. BLOC en español’s learning objectives include:

  • Leadership development for community engagement including defining traits and characteristics of leaders
  • Developing a community lens on the forms of stigmas including enacted and layered stigma
  • What are and how to use health numeracy, measurement tools, and patient support tools for planning
  • Developing skills to effectively be engaged in surveillance, evaluation, calculations, data analysis, and performance measurements as a community leader
  • Increase knowledge of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and other planning bodies for involvement
  • Elaborate leadership opportunities considering self-care
  • Develop individualized action goals and goal statements for seeking leadership opportunities

After completing the program participants are encouraged to engage in the planning process with a local community group serving persons living with HIV such as, Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program planning bodies. The program is available for all (PLH) who reside in Houston, Texas whose primary language is Spanish. The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program recipients are highly encouraged to apply. The program will recruit up to 30 participants.

Apply by Sunday, June 20th, 2021, using the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HTX2021

For more information contact: Cora Trelles Cartagena (She/Ella), HIV Systems Coordinator at ccartagena@nmac.org or 202-870-0481. Please visit us at nmac.org, Twitter/Facebook: @NMACCommunity and Instagram: @nmachiv.

This Building Leaders of Color (BLOC) en español is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $550,000 with 100% percentage funded by HRSA/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA/HHS, or the U.S. Government.

ESCALATE and ELEVATE Coming This Summer

This summer, NMAC will officially launch our Ending Stigma through Collaboration and Lifting All to Empowerment (ESCALATE) and Engage Leadership through Employment, Validation, and Advancing Transformation and Equity (ELEVATE) training programs. For more information on these programs, please contact Charles Shazor at cshazor@nmac.org or Terrell Parker at tparker@nmac.org.

ESCALATE 

Purpose 
The purpose of the ESCALATE training program is to facilitate transformative and relational change in Ryan White HIV/AIDS Programs and the communities they serve through deepening awareness of and practices for cultural humility amongst Persons with HIV (PWH) and RWHAP providers.

The ESCALATE program will train participants in the 57 jurisdictions identified in Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America (EHE) to recognize and address HIV stigma with a particular focus on transgender/gender nonconforming individuals, men who have sex with men, and the Black/African American community. NMAC works in partnership with NORC at and the University of Chicago, Abt Associates, and TRX Development Solutions.

Central to the focus of ESCALATE are community involvement and cultural competency. HIV stigma is a multi-dimensional social issue with various complexities and nuances. Understanding the needs of community is critical. The ESCALATE program engages subject matter experts from impacted communities through the curriculum design. This ensures “buy in” and also guarantees the success of the program. MIPA or the Meaningful Involvement of People Living with HIV and AIDS challenges the idea of creating a service or program without the intentional inclusion and advice of PWH.

Goals

  1. Create an environment of psychological safety for persons with HIV and RWHAP providers to deepen their understanding and practices of cultural humility
  2. Effectively engage in difficult dialogues with communities and institutions about the influence of race, power, privilege, and identity
  3. Identify stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination as forms of bias while learning to recognize and manage unconscious thoughts and feelings influencing behaviors

Objectives

  • Create a shared mental model of cultural humility in theory and in practice
  • Define the “American Dilemma” in the context of race and health care delivery
  • Define intersectionality and demonstrate how it impacts outcomes for marginalized people and groups
  • Introduce the multidimensional model of privilege as a tool to disrupt the single-target group approach
  • Introduce and utilize de-biasing tools and strategies
  • Use reflection and self-critique to explore participant attitudes and beliefs
  • Review individual and organizational strategies to disrupt implicit bias in health care settings

ESCALATE Training Participants  

  • Persons with HIV (PWH) and RWHAP Recipient/Subrecipients Partners (Parts A, B, C, & D)

 

ELEVATE 

Purpose 
The purpose of the ELEVATE program is to expand the participation of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in the HIV workforce, planning councils, and other community leadership roles. ELEVATE builds on the achievements of HRSA and Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) training programs and incorporates their features into a single project. NMAC works in partnership with the JSI Research Training Institute, Inc., the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (ANAC), and the Latino Commission on AIDS (LCOA). Program evaluation will be provided by NMAC’s long term evaluation partner, ICF an internationally recognized evaluation firm.

The ELEVATE program is modeled on NMACs previous HRSA-supported training program, Building Leaders of Color (BLOC) and will integrate the BLOC curriculum with other training programs sponsored by HRSA including: JSI’s “Community HIV/AIDS TA Training” (CHATT) and “Access Care Engagement Technical Assistance Center” (ACE TA Center); the Center for Quality Improvement and Innovation’ s “Training Consumers on Quality Plus;” and Boston University School of Social Work’s “Improving Access to Care: Using Community Health Workers to Improve Linkage and Retention in Care (Among People of Color).” ELEVATE integrates the unique contributions of each of these past programs to provide a state-of-the-art, comprehensive training program for the leadership and inclusion of PLHIV in community decision making bodies and the agencies that serve PWH.

Goals

  1. Increase the number of PWH meaningfully involved in the planning, delivering, and improving of RWHAP services
  2. Build the capacity of PWH to be meaningfully involved in community planning for HIV prevention, care, and treatment services
  3. Build the capacity of PWH to be meaningfully involved in clinical quality management (CQM) activities
  4. Build the capacity of PWH to be meaningfully involved in the delivery of HIV prevention, care, and treatment services
  5. Develop individualized action plans to increase engagement and involvement in the planning, delivering, and improving of RWHAP services

Audience

Persons with HIV (PWH) aligned with a RWHAP Recipient or Subrecipient

  1. Employed by RWHAP
  2. Members of Planning Bodies or Planning Councils
  3. Members of Consumer, Community, & Patient Advisory Boards
  4. Directors from the Boards of RWHAP
  5. Members of Clinical Quality Management Teams or Committees
  6. Other PWH aligned with a RWHAP seeking greater involvement

ESCALATE is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Minority AIDS Initiative as part of a financial assistance award totaling $1,600,906. ELEVATE is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $796,749 respectively with 100 percentage funded by HRSA/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA/HHS, or the U.S. Government.

Statement of Support – National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day Resolution

NMAC is proud to support Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s Congressional Resolution to recognize the National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day on April 10.

“Minority and LGBTQ+ youth are a critical part of the fight to end the HIV epidemic,” said Paul Kawata, Executive Director for NMAC. “Young people continue to be at risk of HIV, accounting for nearly 40% of new infections. Young people of color, like the rest of their communities, are at the greatest risk. Bringing attention to the HIV epidemic among young, increasing their knowledge of testing, treatment, and all the prevention options that are open to them, including Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, will help us reach the goal of ending the epidemic by the end of the decade.”

“NMAC applauds Congresswoman Barbara Lee for her continued leadership on HIV/AIDS related issues,” said Joe Huang-Racalto, Director of Government Relations and Public Policy for NMAC. “Recognizing youth leaders in this movement, especially those most impacted, is important not only to raise awareness but to build tomorrow’s leaders so that public health crises such as HIV/AIDS and racism,are finally epidemics of the past.”

NMAC leads with race to urgently fight for health equity and racial justice to end the HIV epidemic in America. Since 1987, NMAC has advanced our mission through a variety of programs and services, including: a public policy education program, national and regional training conferences, a treatment and research program, numerous electronic and print materials, and a website: www.nmac.org. NMAC also serves as an association of AIDS service organizations, providing valuable information to community-based organizations, hospitals, clinics, and other groups assisting individuals and families affected by the HIV epidemic.

Standing Up Against Anti-Asian Racism

Too often, Asian Americans are incorrectly labeled as the “model minority.” The label minimizes our pain and the challenges we face living in America. Some of us could assimilate, but too many continue to live in poverty, especially people with limited English-speaking skills.

The rise in violence and discrimination against Asians was just another example of the world going crazy. How much more stress, recriminations, and loss can America endure? We are all living on the edge waiting for the next shoe to drop. Would Asians fight back? Would our friends stand with us? Would the President stand in solidarity or blame us for the virus? Please watch this video of an older non-English speaking Chinese American who fought back.

TW: Violence, and Anti-Asian Hate Crime

Don’t mess with “Grandma.” Under similar circumstances, I’m not sure I would have her courage. I definitely understood her pain. It is the pain that too many Asians and too many people of color carry. “Why do people hate us just because of the color of our skin, our accent, or where we were born?” These are not things I can or want to change, but they make so many people angry and define how many Asians show up in the world.

I am the executive director of the National Minority AIDS Council, yet I am still asked to get people’s drinks or hang their coats. Part of why I dress so outrageously is so guests understand that I am not the help. Even at the United States Conference on HIV/AIDS, I’m still asked to get coffee for a table during plenary sessions. It’s taken a long time for me to learn to speak back and now you can’t stop me. Too many Asians cannot speak up. My parents were interred for nothing more than being Japanese. They taught their children the hard lessons they learned from that experience. Keep your head down, try to blend-in, and never speak up.

That’s why I am so inspired by the Asians who are fighting back and the people who are standing in solidarity. People of all races, genders, gender identifies, sexual orientations are standing with the Asian community like never before. Thank you to everyone who posts on Facebook, makes a donation to an Asian nonprofit, attends a vigil, or just talks with their friends. You know your real friends when the s*** the fan (that is so Japanese).

This experience taught me that leadership matters. The President matters. The Vice President matters. I am so proud of the Asian American elected officials who are speaking out. For too many this is their first time on the national stage. Watching the tears of Representative Grace Meng (D-NY) as she called out a member of Congress for hijacking the hearing was an incredible moment. Her words were both heartbreaking and empowering. Her courage to stand up to power and take back the hearing reminded me of warriors like Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi.

This is the legacy of racism that is breaking the fabric of our society. How many people have todie? Unfortunately, the answer continues to be that our lives don’t matter. Calling out anti-Asian violence is interconnected to NMAC’s fight to lead with race to end HIV. None of us can do it alone and we’ve got to figure out how to work together. Divisions are killing us and our communities.

Yours in the struggle,
Paul Kawata
NMAC

Paul Kawata

National Native American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day 2021

Christopher Paisano - Program Coordinator – Indian CountryOn Saturday, March 20, we recognize National Native American HIV Awareness Day. Many here on the Navajo Nation will be traveling to get weekly or monthly supplies as we “go to town” off the Navajo Nation into “border towns” such as Gallup, N.M. or Flagstaff, AZ. For most of last year, Saturdays were just another extended week of lockdown and social distancing for Navajo people.

We have eased up the Navajo government-imposed lock down as we move into getting our COVID-19 inoculation shots at our Indian Health Service (IHS) facilities. Separation seems to be a part of our life now. But for many others on the Navajo Nation and off, separation has existed for much longer. I’m talking about the invisible and sometimes not too invisible social barriers that exist for many of our people living with HIV.

For those on HIV treatment, medicine was supposed to unlock and break down self-imposed barriers to freedom. In many ways, this has happened. But for many, going publicly to get meds at the IHS on a Saturday represents freedom and secrecy while everyone has “gone to town” when pharmacies are uncrowded. I’m talking about the real effects of stigma.

“Stigma is a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.” Our previous Director of the Center to Eliminate HIV Epidemic, Ace Robinson, wrote in the ESCALATE narrative, stigma is fed by “a lack of knowledge or misconceptions about HIV among People Living with HIV (PLWH), their service providers, and medical professionals, fear, discomfort, prejudice and negative attitudes associated with HIV and specific groups (often connected to other social prejudices such as homophobia, transphobia, racism, stigma about substance use, etc.). At the core, the drivers of stigma are characterized by an essential lack of understanding or knowledge that manifests in prejudice.” Prejudice is stigma’s twin.

In other words, to do better, we must know better.

Here at NMAC, we are creating a new program that will help clients, service providers, and community how to recognize stigma and the tools how to eliminate it. We are creating ESCALATE, which stands for Ending Stigma through Collaboration and Lifting All to Empowerment.

We, as so many in community and HIV agencies, recognize that stigma is the barrier that limits access to HIV care for patients and family care within families. Living silently alone within a crowd of family creates a poor image of self that further creates a never-ending cycle of stigma and prejudice. Some PLWH then believe that they shouldn’t deserve more or are worth less. Each experience with stigma begins to slowly erase the true individual when caring for oneself and becomes yet another hurdle to overcome to self-care. Enter ESCALATE.

ESCALATE has been designed with three components in mind that will help participants access tools for self-efficacy: Individual training for community members and leaders, Technical Assistance, and Learning Collaborates for Organizational training. Training will help answer these questions: What is stigma? How to recognize it within self and in communities. What tools can you learn to begin eliminating it in your communities? What will you do once you get back into your community and health facility? All three are designed to work together to train those who access health care with those who provide health care, to create a world without stigma.

That’s the goal. It’s not a just noble goal, but a mandatory goal that recognizes the true worth of our family and community members.

Currently, we Native people are under social distancing and waiting for the time for grandma to freely welcome back her family members. Isn’t it time to welcome back family members and those who are living with HIV?

ESCALATE. When we know better, we do better.

ESCALATE is a four-year cooperative agreement funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration HIV/AIDS Bureau. In partnership with HRSA, Abt Associates, NORC, and TRX Development, NMAC will lead trainings for RWHAP providers and grantees to dismantle HIV-related stigma on individual and organizational levels (for more information, visit https://targethiv.org/ta-org/escalate).

Christopher J. Paisano
Navajo Nation – Laguna Pueblo
Coordinator to Indian Country

Leadership Matters

I’m getting my COVID vaccine today. Words cannot adequately express my gratitude. The vaccine means I get to live. I get to survive another pandemic. I sobbed when I got the news. However, I am also painfully aware of my first world privilege. As the HIV movement did after the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, we must now stand in global solidarity for Covid vaccines for the world. NMAC is truly thankful to Congress and the President for the $3.5 Billion for the Global Fund and $250 million for PEPFAR that was part of the American Rescue Plan Act. As we tested the COVID vaccine using the HIV vaccine infrastructure, we will now use the international HIV infrastructure to address COVID worldwide.

Leadership Matters. As we are seeing first hand, leadership matters when working to end a worldwide pandemic, leadership and money. The same is true for ending HIV. Are you the leader our movement needs to end the HIV epidemic? Ending HIV requires tens of thousands of leaders. However, they may look very  different. The HIV community is not exempt from the hopes/tensions the country feels about race and Black Lives Matter. It’s the struggle for the soul and future of America. COVID showed the need for better, different, expanded healthcare infrastructures. Not just health services, but as HIV taught us, much-needed wrap around services like housing, mental health and food security. Our movement needs to build and support agencies that not only end HIV, but also address the multitude of challenges facing our community. COVID shined a spotlight on the lack of healthcare for too many. Agencies need to expand their mix of services to address multiple needs in our diverse communities.

Communities have diverse needs. They can’t and won’t go to multiple agencies for different services. After COVID, community expects to get services virtually, yet the digital divide is real. Getting an appointment for a vaccine depends on access to technology, yet too many in our communities do not have this access or speak English as a second language. Consumers want agencies that provide a multitude of services, in multiple languages. Organizations must be prepared for change. Some of us are dinosaurs and don’t want to adapt, but we won’t have a choice. The world is changing and there is a right and wrong side in history. To be clear, I’m not saying all older executive directors need to resign, but they do need to look at the role they are playing in fighting or maintaining systems that oppress too many. I believe COVID has changed more than where we work, it has changed what we value and who we want to be. Like so many, I made a pact with God that if I survived COVID, I would be a better person. I would fight harder for my community and not be afraid to ask for grace.

COVID also highlighted our differences. Some people always wore a mask, others usually, and too many never wore a mask. Sound familiar? Substitute condoms for masks and it’s the identical question. We’ve learned how hard it is to get everyone to wear masks and condoms. Yet we can’t give up on either. Until everyone gets the vaccine, we need them.

Thank you, Mr. President for your words about the potential for a more normal 4th of July, for letting me dream. After my vaccine, I look forward to watching the fireworks on the national mall. We still do not fully understand the changes that are about to happen in our world. It seems impossible to go back to the way things were before COVID. How life will change depends on our ability to absorb and integrate the lessons of COVID, the lessons of Black Lives Matter, and the lessons of losing everything. COVID exposed the inequities in the world and hopefully we can no longer look away. As we have seen, access to healthcare is not a luxury, it is a core value for all Americans. Now we understand the need to improve the healthcare infrastructure for all communities. Like the world used the infrastructure for HIV vaccines and the Global Fund, maybe it’s time to use the domestic HIV service infrastructure to buildout our COVID services. Healthcare by itself is not the solution. Domestic HIV services documented the critical importance of wrap around services like housing, mental health and food security. How do we take the lessons learned from HIV and use it as the foundation to build the healthcare infrastructure needed in America after COVID?

Yours in the struggle,
Paul Kawata
NMAC

Paul Kawata

 

 

 

 

 

Statement of Support for HHS Secretary Nominee Xavier Becerra

NMAC, formerly the National Minority AIDS Council, strongly supports the confirmation of Health and Human Services nominee Xavier Becerra.

“We applaud President Biden for nominating a person of the strongest character and a history of fighting for minority health equity, Xavier Becerra,” said Paul Kawata, Executive Director of NMAC. “Attorney General Becerra has a long record of expanding healthcare to minorities and fighting for vital federal funding to end the HIV epidemic.  As President Biden recommits to ending the epidemic, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will be critically important to not only delivering results, but to ensure those who don’t have access to healthcare will not be forgotten.”

“I’ve had the great pleasure of working with then-Congressman Becerra,” said Joe Huang-Racalto, Director of Government Relations and Public Policy for NMAC. “His forward-thinking and defense of those who have no voice, makes him uniquely qualified at this critical time. Aside from executing President Biden’s promise to end the HIV epidemic, Mr. Becerra must rebuild trust among the minority communities. NMAC looks forward to working with Secretary Becerra and we strongly recommend his swift confirmation.”

NMAC leads with race to urgently fight for health equity and racial justice to end the HIV epidemic in America. Since 1987, NMAC has advanced our mission through a variety of programs and services, including: a public policy education program, national and regional training conferences, a treatment and research program, numerous electronic and print materials, and a website: www.nmac.org. NMAC also serves as an association of AIDS service organizations, providing valuable information to community-based organizations, hospitals, clinics, and other groups assisting individuals and families affected by the HIV epidemic.

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Statement of Support for Assistant Health Secretary Nominee Dr. Rachel Levine

NMAC, formerly the National Minority AIDS Council, strongly supports the confirmation of Dr. Rachel Levine as Assistant Health Secretary.

“We strongly support the nomination of Dr. Levine,” said Paul Kawata, Executive Director of NMAC. “In addition to Dr. Levine’s exemplary and impeccable credentials, she is an historic leader in the LGBTQ community. As Secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Dr. Levine led that state’s historic response to COVID-19 pandemic.  She has earned the highest level of respect among her peers and colleagues and President Biden. As the first Senate confirmed transgender American, Dr. Levine is shattering stereotypes and is giving long-overdue hope to transgender Americans. Those of us in the HIV field know the struggles LGBTQ Americans face – especially healthcare discrimination. As Assistant Secretary, Dr. Levine will continue to fight for access to healthcare for underserved minority communities. Her record of fighting for justice is strong and we know she will continue to pave the way for affordable healthcare for all Americans.”

NMAC leads with race to urgently fight for health equity and racial justice to end the HIV epidemic in America. Since 1987, NMAC has advanced our mission through a variety of programs and services, including: a public policy education program, national and regional training conferences, a treatment and research program, numerous electronic and print materials, and a website: www.nmac.org. NMAC also serves as an association of AIDS service organizations, providing valuable information to community-based organizations, hospitals, clinics, and other groups assisting individuals and families affected by the HIV epidemic.

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