via Iris House
Iris House: A Center for Women Living with HIV, Inc., is now accepting Workshop Proposals Abstracts for our annual two-day Women as the Face of AIDS Summit. Monday, May 8, 2017 will provide educational and networking opportunities for people living with HIV and AIDS, providers and professionals working in AIDS service organizations, community-based organizations, government and medical facilities. On Saturday, May 13, 2017 (tentatively), there will be a neighborhood health fair that will focus on consumers, clients and members of our broader neighborhoods and communities.
The 2017 Summit’s theme is "Resilient, Fierce and Wise," and we are very excited about this year’s theme and the opportunities it will present as we look forward toward new challenges in healthcare, how we can amplify our individual voices through strategic collaborations, and our we are working on our efforts to End the Epidemic by 2020 in New York State.
As a community, we recognize that we are stronger together: when we communicate with each other, when we support each other, when we understand that individually none of us can ever be 100%, but collectively, we can be 1000%. This year’s summit will focus on how we can use our combined power: as women and as men, as activists and advocates, as front line social workers, as medical professionals and academics to refocus our energies and end this epidemic. The next four to eight years may present challenges that we haven’t seen since the 1980’s, and together, we can ensure that we’re pushing forward, advocating for ourselves
Workshop Presentations will showcase 60-minute presentations that will reflect one of the five conference tracks. We invite a wide range of presentation styles -- lecture, Q&A, panel, hands-on participation, and more -- and hope to offer a diverse collection of topics within each track. This year’s format will offer opportunities to present on four themes:
1) Resilient (Track One): Resilience is defined as "the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness." It’s not always that easy, and requires discussions of mental health, trauma and trauma informed care, treatment adherence and self-advocacy. In order for us to fight on, we often have to beat back those things that would distract us and keep us down. How do we do that when our bodies, our moods and our environments work against us? Presentations on this track will include topics and activities that make us stronger and healthier.
2) Fierce (Track Two): When our friends were dying and official systems weren’t addressing the issues fast enough (medicine, access to care, research, protection under the law), we had to take to the streets and fight for our rights and truths. We need a renewed sense of activism, community advocacy and engagement. We need to turn the passion of our foremothers into practice today among millennials. We’re still fighting for reproductive rights, criminal justice reform and for cutting edge programs that may be experimental. We had to be fierce, and we have to be fierce again.
Presentations on this track will include topics ranging from how to amplify our voices to those issues that intersect with HIV and come up over and over again, including issues of choice, #blacklivesmatter, ACT UP and more.
3) Wise (Track Three): It takes wisdom, sagacity and commitment to survive decades with HIV. Adherence, Self-Care, Harm Reduction, Therapy/Counselling and other tactics are critical in the long term battle. Service providers need help understanding that the needs of long term survivors change too, and that aside from medical challenges, humans are social creatures and finding ways to create community, combat loneliness and find activity are all part of a holistic and wise approach to life and living. Presentations on this track will focus on living better, living smarter and building communities and activities around us to keep us whole.
4) The Age of AIDS (Track Four): Where are we in 2017? How has the environment changed for people living with HIV and the organizations that serve them? In New York State, we’re working on a blueprint to End the Epidemic. Nationally, an HIV/AIDS Strategy was created in 2010 and revised in 2015. How are we doing with these documents? Do we need to rethink aspects or do more? How are they changing the funding streams, and what kind of work do we need to do to address what we see on the front lines every day? What are we doing after 35 years of this epidemic? Presentations on this track will tie in directly to national and state strategies, programs aimed at furthering them, funding them or working to improve them.
To find out more, click here.
