A&PI WELLNESS CENTER AT THE UNITED STATES CONFERENCE ON AIDS 2010
Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center was everywhere at this year's United States Conference on AIDS held in Orlando, Florida from September 12-15, 2010. We lead or co-presented twelve different conference sessions, highlighting our expertise across different arenas in HIV/AIDS. Below is a summary of our presentations and what's next.
This year's USCA target population was youth, and the theme was "Many Faces, One Voice." At the Opening Plenary, "Youth and HIV: The HIV/AIDS Generation" our own Ben Cabangun spoke from the heart about how he became involved as an HIV educator as a young man. He called on the attendees to start working with youth to truly develop them into leaders: "So many of us young people are lacking community leaders and role models who not just don't reflect our age and our experiences. It is this lack of mentorship that I believe perpetuates stigma and a disconnection to HIV... Don't just educate about HIV/AIDS, but grow leaders that take action." Click here to watch a clip featuring Ben from the Opening Plenary.
Executive Director Lance Toma co-convened a pre-conference two-day meeting of Executive Directors across the nation. The meeting allowed HIV/AIDS Executive Directors to discuss critical sustainability strategies and current trends in organizations through a peer exchange format. Lina Sheth and Sapna Mysoor co-convened a day-long Asian & Pacific Islander Institute with the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum. Topics covered were where A&PIs fit in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy Implementation Plan, how to be an effective Program Manager and increasing community participation in the 7th year of the Banyan Tree Project.
Social marketing, social media and social networking continue to be hot topics at USCA. Stephanie Goss and David Stupplebeen co-presented "So You've Got a Facebook Fan Page, Now What?" with the National Youth Advocacy Coalition. "We concentrated on how social media helped augment and increase the reach of the Banyan Tree Project's annual social marketing campaign," said David. "We were able to demonstrate how social media integration works within a campaign and how to measure success. We heard a lot of great ideas from participants on how to improve our program as well."
Nikki "Tita Aida" Calma and Akira Jackson presented on T-LISH, Transgender Ladies Initiating Sisterhood program. Attendees learned the ins-and-outs of taking an effective behavioral intervention, Mpowerment, and adapting it to work for Transgender young women of color. Tita said, "Most effective behavioral interventions (EBI) aren't written specifically for Transgender women. We presented some insights to attendees on how to adapt or re-invent an EBI that would suit the needs of the communities they serve and to think creatively about various approaches to adaption." Down the hall at the same time, Lance Toma was a panelist on "Strengthening Public Policy Advocacy for Gay Men."
"Seeing Double," a workshop facilitated by Ben Cabangun, brought together providers serving A&PIs from across the nation. The workshop explored how providers could increase prevention and advocacy efforts to respond to the alarming increases in new HIV infections among A&PIs. Sapna and other capacity building assistance providers co-presented "Linking Community Mobilization Models to Evidence-Based Prevention Programs." Sapna concentrated on how the Banyan Tree Project's community mobilization efforts bolster prevention by integrating testing and HIV awareness into the campaign.
External messaging tools and strategies were shared during a workshop on "Crisis Communications: Managing Your Organization's Image in Uncertain Times," presented by Stephanie Goss and Lina Sheth. Lina said that "we had about a dozen executive directors and deputy directors who were at various stages of crisis and needed help developing messages to communicate to their community stakeholders. What we learned during this session is organizations still need help with interfacing internally first with their boards and staff and facing the crisis internally head on instead of avoiding it."
David Stupplebeen presented his poster, "Econ 101: Homegrown Strategies for Saving HIV Funding at Local and State Levels" just outside the Exhibits Hall on lessons learned about funding crises at the local and state levels and the action that A&PI Wellness Center took to advocate for continued funds. Lina presented the Banyan Tree Project as a panelist on "Structural Interventions in HIV" on the last day of the conference, while Lance was a panelist discussing "Navigating the Perfect Storm of Federal and State Budget Cuts, Reduced Foundation Giving, and Decreased Donations."
Now that we're back from USCA, we are reviewing the effectiveness of our presence at USCA 2010 and future opportunities the organization has to further develop and expand on knowledge areas we can continue to share our expertise to the national HIV/AIDS community. "Some of the questions from the participants at the Crisis Communications workshop showed a need for more trainings on organizational risk and organizational culture," Lina noted. Similarly, Stephanie found "we could potentially provide a day-long training or institute just on social networking and media." Over the next few weeks, A&PI Wellness Center staff will be brainstorming on how to further adapt these presentations as online webinars and future trainings.
For more information about our activities at USCA, or to get access to slides or trainings, please contact Sapna Mysoor at sapna@apiwellness.org.
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