Minority Groups Rise to Meet Needs of Communities

Several groups have joined to fight AIDS in black and Latino populations. Some 250 celebrities and entertainment executives responded to a call for action at the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS during its annual benefit gala, Choose Life. HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for African-Americans ages 25-34, and one in 50 males and one in 160 females are HIV-infected.

"How can you hear this and not respond?" asked Bruce Gordon, president of Verizon Communications' retail markets group. Gordon served as the event's chair along with honorary chairs Coretta Scott King and David N. Dinkins. Dennis Haysbert, star of the Fox series "24," and Matthew St. Patrick, star of HBO's "Six Feet Under," joined executives from Black Entertainment Television, Pfizer Inc. and others as gala participants.

Debra Frazer-Howze, NBLCA founder, president and CEO, said people were drawn from every platform of influence in the community to make a positive impact on HIV/AIDS in communities of color. The affiliation of clergy, media representatives, medical practitioners, business professionals and philanthropists is developing and maintaining infrastructures in the hardest hit communities of color.

In the Latino community, the grassroots health services group Aid for AIDS, which collects unused HIV medicines in the United States and ships them to clients in Latin America and the Caribbean, recently received a boost. The Ford Foundation gave it a $100,000 grant to help support its HIV treatment and advocacy programs in impoverished nations.

Over the past six years, AFA has provided HIV treatment worth more than $15 million to about 1,200 HIV-positive people. The group's annual operating budget has been less than $300,000. It has established satellite operations in Chile, Venezuela, Peru and the Dominican Republic.

Back to other news for September 26, 2003