Ana Olivera
Executive Director
Gay Men's Health Crisis, NYC

Working with the images in the Archive, knowing that they come from so many artists living with HIV and AIDS, I was drawn into their lives and then brought into a wider, deeper connection in the universe of the lives of those living with AIDS. I hope that the images I selected communicate the possibilities of hope and becoming. The warmth and strength of their colors and the inescapable pain and anger that I felt from them helped to refuel my passion for the struggle to eradicate HIV and AIDS.

Ana Olivera is the first woman, the first Latina, the first lesbian to head Gay Men's Health Crisis, the nation's largest AIDS service organization. Named Executive Director in November, 1999, she is responsible for programs and services reaching 8,000 men, women and children annually, as well as the agency's national and international education and advocacy efforts. Prior to coming to GMHC, Ms. Olivera directed programs at Samaritan Village, the Osborne Association, and ElRio. At all three, she worked to develop harm reduction-based treatment models and alternatives to incarceration with special focuses on services for women and substance users. At Brooklyn's Kings County Hospital and at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, she developed groundbreaking acupuncture-based programs for the treatment of alcohol and substance abuse.

Ms. Olivera, a Manhattan resident, was born and raised in Brazil. She has an M.A. in Medical Anthropology from the New School for Social Research in New York and is a Licensed Acupuncturist. She is a member of the NYC HIV Planning Council, the Society for National Acupuncture Detoxification Association, and the American Public Health Association.

Visual AIDS: 526 w26th st no 510 new york new york 10001 tel: 212.627.9855 fax: 212.627.9815 email: visaids@earthlink.net

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