I am a fourth-year health education major and double minoring in health disparities and African Studies at the University of Florida. I am an HIV/AIDS youth advocate with an invested interest in addressing health issues impacting young people. I am extremely compassionate and I value the development of interpersonal relationships with people from diverse backgrounds. After being diagnosed with perinatally acquired HIV in 2013, I developed a strong passion to prevent HIV transmission and AIDS progression, especially among young people like me, through testing, education, and treatment linkages. In my efforts to pierce the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS, I am very open to disclosing my HIV status to others. My HIV diagnosis made me realize how real this epidemic is and I’d like to use my own experience with the disease to combat the spread of HIV and promote efforts to eliminate it. I intend on creating more awareness of the HIV/AIDS epidemic within my social networks and beyond. I plan on using what I learn in USCA to implement peer education programs within my community that will provide psychosocial support to adolescents living with HIV as I see this being a major need within my community. I also intend on using the skills and tools I learn throughout the conference to improve and strengthen existing programs offering HIV outreach services in high-risk areas.
